Hot Blooded Need
by MarinaNamaste
Summary: For seven long years, Jacob never knew about Nessie. She's an adult now and is finally leaving the vamp nest and spreading her wings. Jake is a very different, hurt, angry, alpha wolf trying to forget his old best friend. What happens when they meet by chance at a frat party? Sweat and blood and hormones prevail. She isn't daddies little girl any more. She is his. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1- HBN

**Hot blooded need**

**Okay, a little bit of back fill. It's basically cannon characters. Or what I think they might have turned out like if…**

**Jake never showed up for the Wedding. Bella still fell pregnant but the wolves were none the wiser. The Cullen's moved away from Forks when Bella and Edward returned from Isle Esmee. The Volturi never got tipped off by Irina. **

**Jake has been living in misery for the past 7 years with the knowledge his best friend and the girl he **_**thinks**_** he loves doesn't have a pulse anymore and worse still is now supposed to be his mortal enemy. **

**Renesmee's knows very little about the wolf pack and pretty much zero about Jacob Black. She been pretty sheltered and protected. A scientist at heart, fascinated and always analyzing humanity. Let's see if she can loosen up a bit and get her to just go with it, shall we?**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

College frat party; the epitome of the human experience. Or so I am lead to believe. High school had been satisfactory, but my entire family had insisted on playing their part in my initiation to Human adolescence. But now… now that my appearance could be regarded as closer to an eighteen year old rather than twelve, it was my turn to insist on the rite of passage that is leaving the parental nest and going it alone for college. However, do not tell anyone that I am truly only seven years old. Chronological years mean nothing to a vampire hybrid. My brain has been more mature than any of the fools I had to share calculus class with for the past two years. So, for all intents and purposes, I am eighteen. That is what it says on my driver's license anyhow.

I have been at UCLA for a total of three weeks and tonight, I am headed to my forth college party. I choose California specifically for its sunshine. My skin glows slightly in the sun, quite dissimilar to my parents. I want the independence the sunlight gives me. Away from daddy's ever listening brain. He was… actually he still is, _so very_ unhappy about me being away from them. But mom knows why I want to do this and she has him twisted so far around her little granite finger all I had to do was get her on my side and dad was putty in our hands. So the end result is… here I am; getting my college roommate—her name is Amber, and as she put's it, she has all the connections here in LA, self-confessed slut, likes to show off her daddy's money and has promised to get me in to all the best parties. She has no idea I would really like to bite her but won't. I'm true to the Cullen vegetarian diet. I love human blood but I do not bite them. I simply have grandpa bring the donated liquid to me. Biting humans would disappoint dad to no end. Maybe I could give the promiscuous angle some thought though. That would really piss daddy off.

Never the less, here I am, getting Amber to zip me up in the _oh my god_, so short dress Aunty Alice sent down for me. One that I'm sure daddy would not approve of. Alpha Omega Kappa are having their annual freshman initiation kegger and I am going to get myself a) drunk and b) kissed. I am not actually sure if I can get intoxicated, I've never tried, but I am planning on commencing the research tonight. During the first two parties I had attended, I had just stood against the wall watching and observing the humans, cataloging their various displays of social and mating behavior. At the last party, I danced with a young male, and as much as he kept pressing his erection into my hip, it didn't progress any further than provocative dancing. I didn't want to kiss him let alone mate. I think tonight though, I am going to find someone I may be compatible with kissing, and see where it leads.

I have never been kissed. Imagine, if you will, high school with my father AND both my uncles, AND Aunt Rose. I didn't have an opportunity to have a high school boyfriend let alone do all the things a high school girl might do with this said hypothetical high school boy. I'm planning on making my way down the long list of human adolescence experiences. Bit. By. Bit. Daddy doesn't approve.

* * *

"For fuck sake Seth just pick a shirt and let's go!" I called out from the hallway. I just wanted to hit some collage tail. The sooner we got to this party the quicker I could get some random chick in to bed or against the wall. It didn't really matter. Then the sooner I could leave the stupid kegger and go back to wallowing in my miserable shit life that I felt the need to tag along with my pack brothers just to stay human long enough to get some.

After that shit-fight with all the newborn leaches and the even shitter night afterward when _she_ fucking well broke my heart and then stood on it and then fucking spat on it with some vamp venom as she'd married him, I'd kind of gone ape shit. Well, what it really was, was wolf full moon crazy. I lost my humanity for about eighteen months. It took a collective call out from the entire pack, all yelling for me to come home at the same time to get me to even register their presence. Then I had to figure out where the hell I was and traipse my sorry ass home.

It turned out I was in the highlands north east of Quebec. It took me almost five days nonstop to run home. God it hurt when I phased back for the first time in over a year. Then I ate dad out of house and home, then I slept for two days straight. That was almost six years ago. Now-a-days Bella Swan, or Cullen, whatever the fuck her name is now, she doesn't pass through my mind as much. Only every _other_ fucking day.

Now I have a job, my own place, my own pack – it's really only the old pack, it's just I'm fucking alpha now, lucky me— and I can have my share of hot cooch whenever I like. Take tonight for example, with Seth and Embry flanking me, the girls would be lining up for a little hot Indian. We'd do a few loops of the house, check out the poon on offer, get the girls fighting for our attention, then divide and conquer. The age old strategy; it worked with the Roman legions, works with the blood suckers and it most certainly works with the chicks.

* * *

Who am I trying to delude? I categorically dislike the taste of beer. I have had six very large cups in the past hour, with very little effect. I can not do the promiscuous approach either. There are college guys in every corner I look. Amber has her tongue down some arbitrary man's throat. However I cannot simply kiss any random man and I sincerely do not want to lose my virginity on the shag pile rug of some bear soaked frat house den. Music is playing and I imagine a little more dancing won't hurt however. People were walking around with trays of Jell-O shots, I figure I could sample a few of them too. They're actually quite palatable, for human food.

The base of the techno synth beats through my chest. I like the way it thumps against my ribs. It reminds me of the thump of a pulse. Everyone in here has such steady vibrant pulses. I could hear the rush of their blood against their arteries. The scent of sweat, human arousal and their blood is a powerful aphrodisiac. I found myself dancing between two very large football type males. My mouth pressed up against ones neck, the heat incredible as the flow of blood surged beneath the surface of his skin. The other one had his hands on my hips, his pelvis pushing up against my bottom as we all moved together.

Maybe I was more effected from the beer than I realized. The alcohol had diminished my inhibitions. Not my sexual inhibitions but the inhibition to not drink straight from a human. My lips were up against the jocks neck, I don't even know his name and all I want to do was drink from him. I could feel the thump of each pulse under my lip as I hovered over his skin. I don't have venom like my family, but I was salivating like never before. I have never drunk directly from a human. Only the donated sanguine fluid reheated in the microwave. Never fresh. And I was getting awfully close to the source.

The realization sobered me. My head lifted as I took a half step back, it shifted me closer to the man dancing behind me. Human blood and sex; two things that I was a virgin to and they were both right there, walling me in. Moving a little faster then I probably should have, I shifted out of the men's arms, leaving them standing there dancing with each other. Both with erections.

I needed some fresh air. My head was clouded in the sweet, salty scent of blood. I slipped out the back of the house and sat on a bench behind some kids who were passing a marijuana pipe until I had found my head again.

* * *

We started our first round of the house, picking up a beer on our way through the kitchen. The place was loaded with chicks. Most of who were getting drunk off their asses. All three of us turned to look at each other, sniffing the air.

"Can you smell that?" Emb asked.

"It's like, the best god damn scent I've ever smelt," grinned Seth, his eyes closing as he inhaled further.

Yeah I'd smelt it. I'd smelt it the second we'd walked through the front door. It had hit me like a tidal wave. My body was tight and ready, all I could think about was finding the source to that god damned amazing smell. And then fuck whoever it was until she couldn't see straight. I'd never felt so aroused in all my life, and definitely not just from a smell. "Don't follow me," I said to my brothers, the deep bass of my _alpha_ voice rumbling involuntarily.

I stalked all through the house, following that scent. It was concentrated in the living room, but she wasn't there anymore. There were a group of frat boys all crowded around a keg while they chanted to some chick who was doing a keg stand. Two of the jocks in the crowd scented of that sweet compulsive perfume. I felt myself start to tremor, the internal rage of a phase simmering to the surface at the very idea of another male wearing this sent… whoever it belonged to. I haven't been that close to a spontaneous phase for years and I ran, probably faster than I should have, out the back to get some air. To clear my head of this intoxicating, single minded fragrance.

I stepped out to the back of the house, hoping to gulp in some clean fresh air. Only to find the sent, stronger than ever, being carried on the breeze mixed in with some pot. I followed the perfume around the side of the house and past a ring of kids passing around a bong. Sitting behind the stoners, on a bench, alone, with elbows resting on knees was a girl. Her head lowered was into her hands, a mass of long brown ringlets cascaded over her shoulder. The scent. It was hers, I could taste it rolling off her as it hit the back of my throat. My dick propelling me forward to her. As if she'd heard me approaching she lifted up her head. Her chocolate brown eyes meeting mine for the first time.

_Holy shit._

I felt it hit me hard, right in the chest. My heart being retched out of my ribs as I voluntarily handed it over to this goddess. My earth's axis changing as my world suddenly began to revolve around this angel. Those eyes. They were the same as Bella's. Fifteen minutes ago that would have had me off crying like a baby to see eyes that I knew I'd never see again. But I didn't give a shit about my former friend anymore. At that moment, it was those eyes and the girl they belonged to keeping me grounded to the earth. My imprint.

* * *

My head was cleared and I was getting ready to go back inside. I wanted to see if I could salvage some of the normalcy I was attempting to portray at my first attempt to assimilate with humans without familiar assistance. Maybe I could find just _one_ of those males I'd been dancing with. At the very least have my first kiss completed. But then this most amazing fragrance hit me. It was raw and earthy and very, very male. My head shot up and indeed, a very, very large, very good looking, very much masculine man was stalking over towards me. His eyes were such a deep dark brown, even with my enhanced vision, I could only just make out his dilated pupils in the darkness of the evening. He'd been walking towards me, his footsteps very deliberate and very quiet. Then as I looked up at him, he stopped dead in his tracks, his knees buckling as he knelt down before me. Our eyes never breaking contact.

We sat there, for fifty-three seconds, staring into one another's eyes. I could feel his heat radiating of him even though we were a good twelve inches apart. I wondered absently of he was unwell, did he have a fever? He didn't look sick. He looked like all kinds of sex with a pulse. And he was staring at me. Still.

"Hi," I said, reaching my hand out for a polite hand shake, "my name's Carlie." Daddy insisted on me going by an alias and my middle name seemed as good as any.

He smiled at me, a brilliant white, perfectly straight, perfectly perfect smile. I thought he was handsome when we was just looking at me. When he smiled, his whole face lit up. Like sunshine. He was drop dead gorgeous when he smiled. And he was smiling at _me_.

"Jake," he said, taking my outstretched hand as some kind of anomalous electrical current coursed through us. He was hot, hotter than any human I'd ever touched.

He moved, never letting go of my hand and he stood, far more gracefully than I would expect for a man of his stature, then he moved to sit down next to me. His long muscular thigh was very lightly pressing against mine. I could feel his warmth through his jeans and found myself experiencing warmth in my cheeks and a curious sensation between my legs. Yes. This male would do nicely for my first kiss. I didn't think I would be objecting to anything else either.

"Do you go to school here?" he asked, his deep rumbling voice like a soothing layer of liquid pheromones.

"Yes," I answered simply. I found myself unable to articulate anything more profound. This really was the most curious sensation. I believe it's called sexual attraction, but this seemed like so much more. "Do you?"

He shook his head. "I'm just visiting a friend," he said, looking towards the house. Then he looked back at me, his eyes hot and scorching with their charred blacked depths. "Want a drink?"

I scrunched up my face, I didn't want any more beer. I didn't enjoy the taste and it wasn't having the desired effects on my sexual inhibition. On second thought, maybe it was, because looking at this man sitting next to me, all I wanted to do was undress him, undress myself, and then impale myself on him. It was quite an unnerving realization. No, no more beer.

"How about a coke?" he offered, obviously seeing my face of repulsion at the thought of beer. I nodded my accord, still partially muted by his heady presence. Yes, a carbonated drink would be much better. Adequately social, without the intoxicating effects of alcohol. He stood, bringing me also to standing with his hand that had never left mine and lead me back into the house.

We reached the kitchen to find the room moderately crowded. Two very large Native Americans were standing to the side, conspicuous by their size. They seemed very much in tune with each other, both heads turning as Jake and I enter the room, both very deliberately scenting the air. They were looking at Jake, an unsaid question in their eyes. I saw him nod to them, then both broke into smiles.

"These are my friends Embry and Seth," he said, gesturing with his free hand, making no attempt to release the other one holding me.

I reached out my hand to shake. The two men started to reach out, then quickly dropped their hands by their side, neither accepting what I thought was such a common human custom of greeting. They were looking at Jake who was making a barely detectable rumbling sound, it was reverberating in his chest as if in warning to his friends. I lowered my hand, baffled as to why the normal dynamic of adult interaction seemed to be an exception with these three men. The other two were both now tilting their heads in reverence or submission, I could not tell. Jake visually puffed his chest as his rumbling ceased.

It was all very perplexing. Yet the sound was the most stimulating and arousing noise I had ever heard. One hundred percent pure testosterone. I found my breathing quite accelerated and my lips parted reflexively. My thighs pressed together as my body responded to his dominant masculineness.

* * *

I wanted to touch her, feel her skin under my fingertips. I wanted to move my body close to her. I wanted to rip her clothes off and find myself balls deep in that intoxicating sweet smell. And here were Seth and Emb, contemplating shaking her hand. No fuckin way. Their scent was not going to be anywhere near her skin. They dropped those hands of theirs so fucking fast. They knew when not to push there alpha's buttons. That time was right now. Not when I'd just imprinted but hadn't had a chance to have my fill. I'd be pushing or sucking on her _button_ by the end of the night, so help me god.

"I'm taking your room Seth, don't you fucking dare come home tonight," I said to my pack brothers so quietly that only they could hear. I saw Carlie flick her head up, her wet pink tongue moistening her lips as her chest heaved up and down. I had to touch her. "Wanna dance?"

"Sure," she breathed, apparently pleased to be able to touch me too. My hand found the small of her back as I led her through the crowds of kids mingling in the living room. Away from the fucking wolves who wouldn't stop scenting the air. I leaned my head into her hair, inhaling and almost cumming in my pants then and there.

My arms wound around her as we found a space of our own. I liked her height, she was tall, but still well proportioned. She fitted into my arms well, her head nestled comfortably at my neck. She pressed her body into mine, pressing her stomach into my raging hard on. I was so hard, I couldn't have hidden even if I wanted to. And I didn't want to. I wanted this woman more than I'd ever wanted anything in my entire life. It was a compulsion. A craving. A hot blooded need.

The music was thumping, our bodies moving in time with the heavy base. Before the next song started, I found myself gently pushing her backwards. Her body allowing me to lead her until I had her pressed against the wall. My hands moved from her hips to up the side of her face, bushing her curls back off her porcelain face. In the light filtering out from the kitchen, I could see her hair was more of a bronze color that just brown.

"You are so beautiful," I said, my mouth taking on a life of its own. "Can I kiss you?" I asked. Her eyes dilating as that little pink tongue darted out and moisten her lips. God, I wanted to suck on that tongue. She nodded the smallest little nod, tilting her face up to mine. I didn't wait to see if she was gunna say something. Her body language was enough.

My lips crashed down onto hers. The fucking electricity was titanic as our lips met. The imprint bond drew us closer, like my breath was being sucked into her and her breath, all that I needed to survive. Her tiny hot hands slipped up my chest, one hand feeling over my shoulder and my arm, the other resting against my thumping heart. She pressed up harder against my lips; that wet pink tongue flicking against my lips. I couldn't help but let out an involuntary moan and push my hips up into her. Her sent, her skin, her mouth, her hands and then her tongue, all too much for my senses. If I wasn't careful I was gunna take her here in the middle of the fucking frat house lounge room.

"Do you want to get out of here?" I asked between kisses, really not sure what the hell I was gunna do if she didn't.

Her breath was panting as she snaked her body up against mine, her full pert breasts pressing into my chest. "Yes."

"Good," I said as I continued to kiss her. I moved her back through the crowd with our lips locked and her hands gripping onto my biceps. I broke off from our kiss just long enough to find Seth, his eyes snapping up to mine instantly. They all did it. As Alpha, if I wanted their attention, I always got it.

"Keys," I ordered across the room at him. In the span of two seconds he was standing, reaching into his back pocket and tossing me the keys to his car and his apartment. I snatched them up in one fluid motion. My arm wrapped around Carlie's waist as we escaped out the front door. Fuck, I hoped I could make it to the bedroom and not just fuck her across the hood of Seth's shitty green Chevy.

* * *

It took all my strength not to hitch my dress up, tear off my panties and sit on his lap during the four minutes it took to get to his friend's house. He had me up against the front door, faster than I could have imagined. His hard erection pressed into me through the thickness of his jeans, causing my labia to throb and drip with want.

I was inexperienced, I wasn't sure if it was always so intense. I knew my family all shared very intense sexual experiences, there was no avoiding the sounds of all of their coupling as I grew up. Sometimes my intensified hearing wasn't such a good thing. But I hadn't expected to feel that level of abandonment and pure unadulterated lust for myself.

My heightened senses, feed off his scent, his pure earthen fragrance coated the back of my throat and sent its virile pulse straight to my center. His hands were so hot, burning their pleasure over my skin as they raked up my thigh, his giant hand palmed over my hip as my short dress hitched higher. I found myself jumping up, wrapping my legs around his waist as his hot hard erection pressed against my throbbing need. His strong arms were holding me against my backside, pulling me closer to his hardness. Our lips only breaking apart for him to lave along my neck as I started nipping at the tanned skin along his shoulder. I felt my back leave the wall as he carried me along a hallway, kissing me all the way as he walked blindly to a bedroom.

He placed me gently on my feet and I stood back. Breaking all contact from him since the first time we'd met less than an hour ago. Was it really only an hour? I didn't know a thing about this man but I wanted him to take my virtue and then fuck me until the sun came up. And I didn't care. There was something so instinctively right about him, about our connection. Whatever this was that I was feeling… it was amazing.

And I wanted more.

My dress was already up, bunched against my hips from where my legs had straddled around him. I made short work of the shift, lifting it up and over my head, leaving me standing in nothing but my black lace bra and panty set with my six inch Manolo Blahnik's. I know I looked good. My hybrid skin was perfectly smooth. My curls were falling over my chest just skimming below my elbows. He couldn't take his eyes of me. It gave me the confidence to move forward.

I took the half step back towards him, my hands snaked under the Henley he had on. I teased it up his ribs and over his head before I dumped it very unceremoniously on the floor.

My lips meet his as my hands reached out to his belt, deftly unwinding it like I'd done it a hundred times before. I slid the leather out the belt loops, letting it fall as my hands found his button fly. Jake moved his mouth down my neck, it sent a hot shiver over me before he returned his kiss to my mouth. Heat and scent and lust was piquant against my mouth, his need was forceful but nonetheless, very desired. I felt my nipples contract and harden against the lace. They were jutting out as his large hands found my breasts, pinching and rubbing them between his fingers. My mouth let out a wanton moan into his.

I wanted him so much. The feeling was overwhelming. My fingers settled over his pants as I reached to undo all of his buttons, my hand weaving in to find its prize. And what a gift. His hot, hard, thick penis was jutting out in front, proud and oh so full. I touched it gently, incited by the softness of his skin but hesitating, not really sure how best to touch it. I wasn't worried about the intercourse hurting, as large and muscular as he was, he was still only human. I could have picked him up and thrown him the four foot towards the bed if I had chosen. But I doubt that would have been well received. I knew most males preferred to be stronger than females in general, but more so in mating. I could tell he would be a dominant mate.

* * *

Her soft warm hand wrapped around my dick, tentatively stroking along its length. Girls were often a little intimidated by my size, it was one of the best up-sides of being wolf and alpha. The size. Some time's bigger _is_ better. She stroked a little more, her fingertips tickling over my head and then along my entire length. If she kept up these light feathery touches, I was gunna cum all over her hand. I had to get her onto the bed and inside of her. I shoved my jeans down and off, stepping out of my boots as I leaned it to kiss her again, my hands grabbing her waist, my fingers and thumbs almost touching as I held around her.

I moved my hands to behind her back, finding the clasp of that sinful bra she had on. Sliding if off her shoulders, and letting free the most perfect pair of tits I'd ever seen in my entire life. They were perfect; high and round and full, just a little heavy without being too much. Her pink nipples were just asking to be sucked. I couldn't help myself, I picked her up from under her ass, carrying her the two short steps to the bed before depositing her gently down. I shimmied her lace panties down off her hips, leaving them somewhere around her knees as my mouth found a breast. She let out these little mewing sounds as I sucked.

God, I could have just sucked on those perfect titties all night if she hadn't reminded me there was quite possible somewhere even better to be. Her pussy. She reached her hand down and wrapped it around my cock and tugged. My balls set on fire as I pressed myself into her hands.

My palms ran down her body, relishing in the curve of her waist, the slight swell of her hips, the firm flesh of her inner thigh before my fingers ran a heated line up her slick, hot, slit. She let out a quick, sizzling breath, my mouth crashing back down to hers as my tongue sought entrance. Our lips bruised as tongues flicked together. I sucked on that little, hot, pink tongue, drawing it into my own mouth as I felt a fresh surge of wetness on my fingers. Then I shifted, I wasn't going to last much longer and I lined myself up with her, the tip of my aching head just pressing against her opening.

She pulled back from our kiss, her lavender lids heavy as she caught her breath, her hands lightly pressing against my chest. "Jake," she said, staring intently into my eyes, her deep dark chocolate orbs nervous yet trusting, but still full of secrets he wanted to know. "Jake, I… I…" she looked like she was suddenly unsure. Like a little girl, shy and timid.

"What is it Carlie?"

I saw a flicker of a frown wash over her face. "My name's not Carlie."

"Okaaay?" I was pretty sure she'd said it was Carlie. How could I forget my own imprint's god damned name?

"Carlie's my middle name. My real name is Renesmee." She looked over my shoulder, fixated on what I guessed was nothing in particular. "Sorry I lied," she whispered looking back to me with her luxuriant café noir eyes.

Renesmee, what kind of name is Renesmee? I didn't matter. I didn't really care at that very moment. I was half a foreskin away from being inside her and my cock was weeping pre-cum in expectation making it really hard to concentrate on anything else.

"Okay, Renesmee," I said, testing the name out on my tongue. "Whatever your name is, it doesn't matter," I said, kissing her again, the head of my dick collecting her wet as I ran it along her folds.

She pulled her lips back again. "Um, Jake," she said softly, biting down on her lower lip. "I think we should use protection," she said, rushing on with her explanation. "I've never done this before but I believe it's generally acknowledged as the prudent thing to do," she said, her cheeks flushing as she looked down to my dick trying to muscle its way in uncovered.

God what had I been thinking? Condoms. Fuck! Alpha gets the imprint pregnant on the first fuck. Good one Jake. Still kneeling between her legs, I leant over to the floor, quickly searching through my back pocket of my jeans, finding the row of little squares of foil I had tucked in there.

As I was tearing the packet held between my teeth though, I stilled and sat back on my heels. Surveying this magnificent woman laid out before me in all her glory, I was rethinking the words she'd just said. She'd never done this before? Like, never? I felt a sick felling in the pit of my stomach as I realized I had almost ripped through this woman's virginity without a second thought.

"Are you still a virgin Renesmee?" I asked. I didn't want her to be scared, or think this was a bad thing. Because it definitely was NOT a bad thing. The thought that I could be the only man to ever know this angelic beauty was enough to have me fighting my body to not push this intimacy immediately.

The wolf just wanted its mate, but me, the man, I wanted much more. I wanted the intimacy and affection that the imprint could bestow. Now I knew I had to make love to this girl. Transform her into a woman. I couldn't believe I was going to do anything less chivalrous only ten seconds ago.

She nodded, confirming her innocence, her hands reaching up and gently taking the foil packet that was still hanging from my lips. I felt her take hold of my cock and wind the latex down over it, not breaking eye contact for a second.

* * *

I'd just realized that I perhaps should have told him I was a virgin before he was less than an inch away from finding out first hand. But it felt so very right, it honestly didn't seem to matter. I could not imagine myself ever being intimate with anyone else again. Then a thought occurred to me, oh my, had I become one of those fawning teenage girls, love struck after her first kiss? Maybe I had. The idea of this only being a one night coupling had my insides turning. But I consoled myself that I could at least get tonight. So long as my virginity did not scare him off. So, as he asked me, I simply nodded, trying to make it into an unimportant thing and moved straight on with the contraception.

He let me roll on the condom, his eyes dark yet pellucid. I shifted underneath him, lining myself up, waiting for the next move. I am a scientist at heart, I had done my homework. I knew how tough my hybrid skin was, there was no way a human was going to be able to break through my hymen without ending up with a penile fracture himself. I had been experimenting with my own sexual desires and likes for almost twenty-four months. I had made a point of making sure my own hymnal membranes were ruptured before entering into this phase of my human experience research.

He was fixed, motionless for a few beats of our pulse. Then he shifted, his eyes boring into mine as his body hovered over me. Lips that had been so wanton and full of carnal need only seconds ago were now subdued and restrained and now slowly gracing over me. His lips were ever so softly sweeping over the contours of my face. My cheeks. My temple. My eyes fluttered closed as he lightly kissed by eyelids. I relished the soft, plush feel of his skin dragging down my bridge until landing gently onto my lips.

"Let me finish making love to you," he whispered as his lips brushed over my ear, it sent a convulsing shiver over my entirety. His noise dragged along my jawline and down my neck as he inhaled. A primal rumble originating from his chest reverberated into mine where his pectorals were pressing into my breasts. My body both relaxing and yet tense, all at the same time. I didn't know humans could create sounds like that. I liked it.

He kissed me again, languidly and without the speed and force of before. His hands fanned over my body. The rough pads of his fingers sensually tickled as he ran under the swell of my breast, up and then down the inner aspects of my arms. His fingers circled over my palms, interlacing his fingers with mine and bringing my hands up to his mouth. He very gently kissed the tips of each finger before laying my hand back down on the sheet and repeating with the other. His body moved over mine, sliding down until his lips found my nipples. One hand rolling and gently tweaking one breast while his mouth was hot against the other. A curious pleasure jetting down to my abdomen and vulva as he rhythmically sucked.

His attentions moved down my chest, his tongue making circles around my breast as he blew his heated breath across my skin, sending a shiver of goose bumps over my flesh and my nipples contracted further. His lips traced down my stomach, his tongue dipping in at the navel all the while his hands ghosting over my sides, an involuntary tense of my obliques undulating under his sensitive fingers.

He moved further down, shuffling his knees back until I heard his legs hit the floor. His hands wrapped around my hips and he oh so slowly pulled me diagonally, until the backs of my thighs were halfway off the bed. I leaned up on the backs of my elbows to see his muscled body kneeling between my legs. He lowered his head, very explicitly inhaling. He seemed to be filling his lungs with the scent of my sex, his eyes rolling back into his head as that pure testosterone, lust inducing rumble reverberating throughout the quiet room. The sound brought a fresh surge of wetness to my insides, I could feel it trickling down my crouch.

Then without warning, he lowered his face, and in one long savoring movement, his tongue laved its way up my labia. The heat that coursed through out my body was second to none. I felt like a raging inferno of want and need and desire as my throat let out an unconscious hiss of covet. His ministry of my body continued like a compulsion. I felt a thick heavy finger douse itself in my moisture before tentatively entering me.

I felt the already torn membrane's stretch and give as he moved in. His tongue circling over what I imagine must have been my clitoris because right about then is when my analytical documenting brain shut down… and I simply felt. It stopped being an event in my life to catalogue and started to be something much more emotional, primitive and complex both at the same time.

I felt like my mind was unraveling as I lost myself to the pure unadulterated pleasure I was being bestowed. He added a second finger, pressing upwards inside of me as his very talented tongue and lips danced around my point of focus. My body was alight as the feeling of my very first climax sizzled through my synapses… the first that I hadn't self-assisted that is. He continued sucking and flicking with his tongue until it was more than I could take and I sat up a little, pulling him up the bed to me.

Our bodies had aligned once again. I could feel the very tip of his penis as it brushed against my still very much engorged flesh. "I'll be as gentle as I can," he said, his eyes kind and full of what seemed like love or possibly devotion; it certainly seemed more sensitive than simple lust. Whatever it was that I saw in his eyes, it somehow morphed what we were sharing into what was initially a union of two individuals into an otherworldly uniting of hearts. A mingling of souls. A binding of something much deeper than the taking of ones virginity. _Could_ I fall in love? Was I _in_ love? Because whatever romantic love feels like, I couldn't imagine it being more powerful than this.

His eyes were boring into the very depths of my heart and soul as he slowly entered me. I think he was waiting for the barrier of my tearing hymen that never came. His exceptionally long and thick member simply sliding up inside of my depths.

* * *

It took every last morsel of my being not to ram my cock up inside her. Instead I made myself move agonizingly slow. My eyes searched the depths of her chocolate seas as I moved, if there had been a cherry to pop so to speak, I'd missed it. Maybe my fingers had done the job already. She never grimaced or seemed to hurt as I entered. Could I be lucky enough to make love to my virgin imprint and not cause her pain? I fucking hoped so.

I moved slowly still, a few move revolutions of my hips. Then, I couldn't take the torture anymore and I started moving, I mean, really moving inside of her. Her hands were all over my back and shoulders, our eyes never leaving one another's. I knew she wanted this as much as I did. The wolf is only ever what the imprint needs and all I wanted to be was sheathed up to the hilt of her.

I started moving, like a steam train building momentum, faster and faster, in and out. Magically she accommodated all of me, a surprising and such a fucking stimulating extra. My hands were by her head, elbows pressing into the sheets and my palms cupped her sweet face. Still her eyes never left mine. Incredibly soon, I felt her squeezing around me, her mouth letting out her heated breath with delicate little moans as she'd approached her second orgasm. I could feel my balls tighten as I moved, thrusting harder inside of this perfect woman.

Our eyes broke contact for the first time since I'd entered her. The sides of our faces pressed together as I'd breathed in the scent from behind her ear. One of her hands laced behind my neck, the other resting on my jaw. Then suddenly, I was bombarded with an explosion of color and light, a melee of emotions and feelings coursing over me; want, desire, craving, need, pleasure— immense pleasure— sensuality, eroticism, carnality but most of all, I felt an unparalleled, overwhelming sense of love and bonding. More than I could possibly have imagined ever feeling in my life.

Overwhelmed was the understatement of my life, I lost all control of my tightly tethered wolf. He surged forward, slamming me into my mate, spilling my seed deep with the confines of the glove as my mouth involuntarily found purchase against her throat, biting down. My teeth sunk into her luminous skin, marking her as the wolf's, as mate, as mine. She screamed as I bit, shattering my ear as she climaxed around me and her own mouth found my shoulder, sinking her teeth into me in return.

* * *

I couldn't help the alto groan of satiation I let out as I sucked in his sweet, earthy haem. My body quivered from apex to palate as all my senses were filled with him.

Then I realized I was biting him. _Drinking_ from him.

And he had bitten _me_.

He'd bitten me?

I unlatched myself from his soft and fragrant skin. Licking the small trickles that remained as I saw, before my own eyes, his body heal in a matter of seconds. Only a small faint silvering line was left as evidence of my attack. I moved my face up to his, his deep dark eyes flicking between mine.

"What are you?" we said simultaneously. Shock and ore washing over us.

"Wolf" he whispered, so quietly that I barely heard. I sucked in a breath. I knew my family's involvement with a tribe of Native American in the Pacific Northwest. The Quileute people had a group of protectors who could shape shift into wolves. Their only purpose was to protect their tribe from the cold ones. Vampires. Creatures like me.

And I'd just made love to one.

* * *

I saw her intake of breath as I whispered more to myself than her in answer to our parallel question. But she'd heard me. I don't know how, but she heard me. And she'd bitten me and drunk. Like a vamp. But this was no leech. She was warm, she hada pulse, and her scent was intoxicating. She was my _imprint_.

"What are _you_?" I asked again. Slowly, I lift myself off her body, withdrawing from the place I wanted to be most. I wanted to know, needed to find out, but at the same time, I didn't really care. This was my imprint. My reason for breathing. My tether to the earth… My everything.

But still, she didn't answer me.

I hovered over her, our skin only a breath apart, my hands pressed on the sheets by her shoulders. My body pressed her into the mattress as I searched into her eyes; Bella's eyes. "I don't even know your whole name," I said, giving her an opening to explain before my imagination could run off with itself.

She looked back up at me. Her eyes dilating and contracting as she focused, her swollen, flushed, pink lips parting as her answer sat on her tongue. "My name is Renesmee Cullen," she whispered.

I felt my body tremor. Divided and split by so many emotions. That name, it had been the cause of so much of the hardships my pack and I had suffered. That name had been the destruction of my heart as _she'd_ taken it. I'd built up such a resentment to that name over the years. A portion of me wanted to scream and phase and hunt down those blood suckers and decimate them. But more so, it was her name. My imprint. My embodiment of perfection. The owner of my heart and soul. My gravity. I'd be whatever she wanted me to be, do whatever she wanted me to do. And I could tell she wanted me to be okay with her last name. Because suddenly… I was.

* * *

I'd been honest. Told him my real last name. As soon as I did, I knew he knew my family. Or at least knew of them. I could see the play of emotion across his face. The cold stony depth of his eyes before they returned, hot and blazing and warm once again into mine.

His fingers traced over the lines of my face. Along the bridge of my nose. Ghosting over my lips. Brushing lightly through my brows until he'd gently skimmed under my eyes, focusing there. Back and forth over the smooth skin above the apple of my cheeks his fingers brushed.

"You have such beautiful eyes," he said, a reverent yet also hesitant tone to his voice.

"I'm told they were the same as my mother'," I answered in attempt to give him ease of entry into my world.

He froze at my statement, the air rushing out of his lungs in a gush of shock as he looked down at me. His eyes once again steely and cold black iron one moment, then warm and liquid melted chocolate the next.

I think we needed to talk.

* * *

**Seeing as this story is no longer a One Shot— Lets' go on to Chapter 2!**

**Please**** review if you've liked.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey all.**

**So finally, after more than a year from when I first published this one shot, I've added to the story.**

**I had so many pleas to turn the one shot into a multi chapter story. And finally, I have. This is an 8 chapter story, that I've already written and is almost all beta'ed. I'm planning on posting a chapter or 2 every week.**

**I've only slightly altered the last bit of the 1****st**** chapter. You might want to go back and re-read it before starting this one. **

**Hope you enjoy. **

**MarinaNamaste.**

* * *

Chapter 2

I didn't understand. The same as her mother's? It couldn't be.

_She _was a vamp. She was dead and cold, and unable to have children. I also knew for a fact that Bella Swan didn't have a kid at the age of seven. Maybe she's somehow related to Charlie? Still doesn't explain the biting and all round blood drinking. Not that I minded. My imprint could do whatever she liked of me, it was all part of the package. And anyway, it felt amazing.

"Your mother's eyes?" I asked. My body was still pressed against hers, her soft perfect breasts were pressed under my chest as I hovered, looking down at her angelic face. My eyes coursed over her features. Features that, the more I looked, the more I was reminded of two people—and I use the term _people _loosely— I used to know.

Her eyes searched between mine, the dark, deep brown orbs flicked back and forth as she seemed to formulate the best answer.

There've been times in the brief period I've known her that she seemed to be analyzing everything we did. Studying everything I'd said. It was like it was the first time she'd ever been let out in to the real world and she was taking mental notes or something. I wonder if maybe she was. Everything about this woman was so fascinating to me; she's so captivating. I am now dedicated, for the rest of my life, to unravelling the mysteries of one Miss Renesmee Carlie Cullen. My soul mate. My imprint.

I consider myself one lucky fucker.

"Yes," she said quietly, her eyes now still and steady into mine. "My father always says that her eyes are what he misses the most."

Then she shifted slightly under me, her leg wrapping around to hold mine, her hands coming to embrace my shoulders. It was subtle, but I could feel her nervousness. She was holding me close, in what I figured was preparation for me to pull away from her in response to whatever she was about to say. It wasn't needed. The imprint wouldn't let me run from her. Not that I wanted to anyway… well, at least ninety-nine percent of me didn't. I am absolutely loath to admit it, but a tiny portion of me still hated that name and all the hateful emotions it conjures up in me. But it wasn't going to be an issue. The imprint is irrefutable.

She sucked in a deep breath, before continuing. "Yeah," she said softly, her lips barely moving as she spoke, "my eyes are the same color as my mother's… when she was still human."

She said nothing else. She was waiting for my reply.

But I didn't answer. I needed to collect my thoughts for a minute. It was just a short sentence. A dozen words strung together, but it said so much. My mind flicked through the possibilities of whose eyes she has. The obvious similarities to another set of eyes I once knew—Aka Bella's— was a complete, totally couldn't happen, impossible notion. She'd said her mother was once human, which implies that she no longer is. Which then implies that Renesmee is also not human. I allowed myself to focus on that for a moment.

This woman in my arms is not human— and she seems to know that I'm not really either.

She'd bit me— and I'd healed.

I know she saw it—and it hadn't freaked her out.

And she'd bit _me_— and it didn't freak _me_ or the wolf out.

It had just felt amazing. _Fucking_ amazing.

We both obviously had secrets we wanted to share but we both seemed too frightened to spill. She needed me to have the courage for us both. I could feel it in the depths of my imprinted soul.

I didn't answer her bombshell. Instead my lips lowered on to hers, pressing a soft, reassuring kiss upon her before pulling back from her skin, my knees kneeling on the cool hardwood floor between her legs.

I saw the distress in her eyes as she assumed and started to freak out that I was going to run. I wasn't. I just wanted us both to be more comfortable.

"Come lie up here," I said, standing and pulling back the bed covers before sliding in and opening my arms in a gesture for her to join me.

I hardly knew this girl, but as she slid up to the head of the bed and under the covers, naked and into my waiting arms, I understood that feeling of belonging and wholeness that had started to seep into my bones was the feeling I had been waiting for. I'd been waiting for her all my life.

I wanted to know her better.

"I think we both have a lot we have to share and a lot of questions," I said, as my arm wrapped around her. The tips of my fingers played with the fine silvering bite mark I'd left at the base of her throat. Her skin erupted in goosebumps at my touch; a short, feminine, throaty, dick twitching moan echoed over the room.

She leaned her body on mine and my restless hand finally came to lie just underneath the swell of her naked breast. I resisted the temptation to find a nipple to play with. She had beautiful nipples, I'd discovered.

I leaned down, pressing my lips into her hair and inhaling that intoxicating sent. It was now mixed with my sent and our sex. It was an overpowering and heady aroma. My fingers smoothed over the soft swell of the underside of her warm, heavy weight. I mentally cleared my head. Fighting the strong physical desire coursing through me, instead focusing on the person behind the perfect breasts.

"Why don't I start?" I said, clearing my throat and willing my dick to keep quiet for five.

The born leader in me took the reins. "You said your eyes are the same as your mom's were when she was human. Does that mean she's something else now? Is she a vamp?" I asked as gently as I could.

"Yes," she whispered. She was still unsure if her answers would scare me. I was now more than sure she knew about my people. Maybe not much knowledge, but just enough to make her weary of being a leech. But she wasn't a leech though, was she? She had a pulse. She smelled and tasted divine, she was warm and soft and her breasts were perfect… and she was my imprint.

My head was still reeling that it had finally happened.

"It's not the Spanish inquisition Renesmee, you can tell me anything. I promise you, I will always be okay with it." If only she knew just _how_ okay I would be. I continued, gently prompting her, encouraging her to divulge more. "And you're a Cullen?" I said, more of a question that a statement.

"Yes."

"But you drank my blood. You bit me. Are you not 'vegetarian' like them?"

"You know my family?" she asked, inadvertently diverting the conversation as she lifted her head off my chest and looked at me over her shoulder smiling. She seemed excited by the prospect of me knowing her family.

She had a beautiful smile. It lit her up from within. She was a beautiful woman; shapely full lips, contoured cheeks and full, bold lashes. But when she smiled, it transformed her face and she became a goddess.

Our eyes met in the light of the dim bedside lamp. That attraction zapped between us, but at the mention of her family I'm sure she saw the loathing creep into my eyes. I saw the flicker in hers, it flickered as she realized that me knowing her family might not be such a good thing.

She was partially correct.

That one percent of me still didn't think it was a good thing.

I wanted that one percent of my mind to go to hell. But the fucking Alpha was strong and so god damn willful.

"They're the only vampires that I've met and haven't killed," I said stoned faced and unable to hide the threatening menace in my tone. I could hear her heart beat jump, her body tensing and on alert. Her flight or fight mechanism had kicked in, and she was ready to fight or flight from me.

At that moment I hated, more than anything, that tiny part of me that still felt bitterness towards the golden eyed leeches— her family. I hated that I had had allowed that bitterness any kind of voice.

The imprinted part of me— the ninety-nine percent— couldn't have care less about her family name or the need to treated the enemy. But the Alpha who'd returned after a year and a half of absence while lost in grief, that little part of me had returned stronger and more focused… and more ruthless. That one percent was fighting to assert itself.

"Do you know about a treaty they once had?" I asked her, desperately trying to force the hostility from my traitorous voice.

She nodded, her large doe eyes looked up through her long fanning lashes. Her body was frozen in fear.

She looked so vulnerable; naked and exposed as she lay there in my arms. Her heart was fluttering like a little bird and her breath was coming in suppressed hiccuping pants. She was terrified. The realization awakened the wolf. A shudder of protectiveness surged though me. This would not do. Not at all.

It was true, the Cullen's _were_ the only leeches I'd met and not killed. It didn't mean I wanted to hurt Renesmee in anyway though. Quite the opposite, the wolf would die to protect her. Her life was all that he now lived for. I couldn't bear the thought of her being scared of us, of me. In any form.

The imprinted wolf battled internally with the jilted man. If the boy from years ago was still angry, he could take it up with Bella, this wasn't Renesmee's burden to carry or endure.

My saving grace was that, thankfully, through the silent struggle I was having within, she still stayed in my arms. Even though her body was reacting in fear, the larger part of her, the part that could feel my devotion and protectiveness; that part of her trusted in me instinctively. Her innocent confidence in me was the tipping point for the battle. Fighting through her own fears, she nestled her cheek against my chest and looked up at me.

Her lips kissed my skin, and her body pressed apprehensively against mine._ I trust you; in whatever this feeling I'm experiencing is, _was whispered inside my mind, and the wolf howled in his righteousness.

Her trust in what must have been a baffling and yet innate bond between us had the wolf assuaged and the Alpha humbly admitting defeat and forgiveness.

Even without really knowing what the hell was going on between us, she trusted in us… in me. Somehow, she ignored her fear and set aside my fraudulent threat, instead seeing the love and devotion that was behind the words. I could see it in her eyes, she could see the battle raging within me. I could feel her acceptance, _despite_ the Alpha's stupid, proud threats. She understood the wolf. She trusted the wolf.

If I hadn't been devoted to her already, I would have fallen in love with the girl then and there.

She was brave. And gracious. And beautiful.

My mate.

The connection Renesmee and I held between our focused eyes melted any last vestiges of hostility that I had somehow been holding on to. The slight lingering scent of fear still hazing around her had me softening my eyes further, smiling in reassurance that this place, this den, this sanctuary the wolf had made for us— for my imprint— truly was safe.

Sanctuary; I knew it was really just Seth's bed, and that the reality of her family's past with my pack could have far reaching consequences. However to the wolf—which was now the completely dominating part of me— this woman was his mate, and he needed her to know that she was safe. That there was no safer place than with him—me.

I took her small nod as conformation. My imprint felt safe in my arms. The wolf purred his contentment at the awareness of it.

I moved on, hoping to get though the _duty_ aspect of my role as Alpha, leader of the La Push wolf pack as soon as possible and with nil casualties; namely Ness or me and my heart. I would never let her see the savagery of what the Alpha wolf was capable of. No, I'd never her even come close to letting her see. but I did need to know how much she knew about the terms of the agreement between our ancestors.

I needed to know if she understood the details of the truce. "Do you know that the main part of that treaty is that they can't feed from humans… ever," I said, pulling her hand from my cheek. With her warm fingers in mine, I pressed her hand down my throat, over to where lay a faint,healed scar from her bite from only minutes earlier.

She'd bitten me, and she'd drunk my blood. The wolf found that a little gross. Forgivable but still gross. But… the hot blooded man still had the sensation of just how good it had felt as we'd exploded together fresh in his mind. My dick was remembering it pretty clearly too.

I was suddenly lost in my own thoughts, remembering just how good being wrapped up inside her had felt— better than anything I'd ever felt in my whole fucking life— times a thousand. My dick was stirring again at the memory when she lifted her had off where it had been resting on my shoulder. She pressed up, her naked breasts hanging heavy and swinging below her. Her two hard nipples were jutting out, dark pink, like two tiny strawberries waiting to be sucked and nibbled at, they hardened under my gaze, puckering as she started to sit up. My eyes flicked from her tits to her eyes. Tits. Eyes. Tits, and then eyes.

The mating instinct was so fucking strong. It swept me up and I lost all train of thought.

She'd been watching me as I'd been watching—ogling—her. I forced myself to keep my eyes at her face. She smiled, it was a soft lifting of her lips, a knowing smirk. I'd been caught perving. Then I saw something in her eyes shift, and she moved her body, turning so that she was sitting on the bed. She folded her legs under her, unconcerned by her nakedness as my eyes unapologetically traveled over her flawless, creamy skin once again.

Our eyes meet as she watched me take her beauty in. A more pronounced satisfied smirk twitched on her lips as our eyes met once more and we both felt the desire rolling of one another. She was confident in her body, she should be— she was fucking stunning.

Her eyes bore into mine as her hand reached up, warm soft fingers gently traced over the place that should bare the mark of her bite and her midnight snack once more. But it didn't. There was no mark. It had healed.

But she had bitten. And she had drunk. I still didn't know if she understood the ramifications of her drinking human blood as a matter of routine. Hell, _I_ didn't know the ramifications if she did. I didn't know what the wolf would do if his imprint was also the very thing he was made to kill.

Her eyes lowered to the smooth, healed skin on my shoulder and then back to my face. "Firstly," she started, her voice coy, "I doubt you're actually _human."_ I could hear the grin forming on her pretty lips. "so that part of the treaty is safe."

Then she blinked, slowly and purposefully, opening as the playful lust in her eyes flickered suddenly to anxiety and the smile dropped from her face. The veil of confidence slipping to expose her real emotion of insecurity. Her lips parted and I could see the sudden desperation in them. She was desperate for me to hear her, to truly listen to what she was about to say next.

"And secondly" she hesitated, biting her lower lip in a way that reminded me of Bella.

It didn't upset me, to be reminded of the girl I'd lost the way it might have just a day ago. Seeing my imprint bite her lip like that was hot, instead it sent a renewed rush of blood to my groin. Then, like the screeching of breaks, my focus was back on my imprint, I was hit with an ache in my chest, and her soul begging me to help her tell me what it was that she seemed to desperate to say.

I leaned up on an elbow, reaching up to tuck a stray curl from her face and slipping it behind her ear. Her hair was so beautiful and soft. God I was easily distracted by her, I forced myself to focus. "Go on Renesmee, I'm listening."

She paused only momentarily, swallowing and taking a reassuring breath. "That was the first time I've ever bitten a human, Jacob... Ever." Her eyes were wide and glassy. Her heart thumped out like a hummingbird's wings. "Please believe me," she begged.

I did. Of course I did. I could feel her sincerity in my chest. It pulsed and vibrated with the bond that held us to one another.

That had been the first time I'd bitten a human –or whatever she is— too. My eyes left her face and traveled down the length of her throat, zeroing in on the crescent shape mark at the apex of her shoulder. The wolf's mark. My mark.

My dick pulsed again at the memory of it all.

I willed it to go down. She didn't need my body right now, she needed my confidence and trust. After her faith in me earlier, she deserved as much from me now.

Through the fog of lust and desire, I really had heard her. I'd been committing to memory and cataloging every detail of what she had been saying all night. The melodic sound of her voice from the moment our eyes first met was now the center of my world; I hadn't heard anything else _but_ her. This whole evening I'd been soaking in every detail, every nuance of this magnificent angel in my arms.

"But you're not a leech," I said, more as a statement than a question. "You have a pulse." I reached up to her, the back of my hand gently caressed over her jaw and down her throat, nestling against her delicate collarbones. My finger traced over her mark and her eyes closed as she reveled in the pleasure it gave her. I sat up, facing her as my other hand traced over the dip of her waist and my fingers splayed out. I pressed my heated palm into her belly and leaned forwards, my nose brushed against her pulse point. I inhaled deeply.

"I love the way you smell. Why? Why doesn't it burn my nose like the rest of your family's scent does?"

My question was soft and gently inquiring. I was peeling back the onion of who she is, unraveling what makes up the essence of my imprint. It was like I was slowly unwrapping the best birthday present I ever had or ever would receive.

A thought of her wrapped up in nothing but a big red bow and asking to be opened popped into my brain and I quickly quashed that as she continued our serious conversation.

"I'm only half human," she said turning and lying back down, her glorious hair fanning out behind her. She tugged on my arm, pulling be back down until we were sharing the same pillow. We we're lying face to face, our breath mingling as our noses lay only inches apart. One of her stray ringlets was winding up and obscuring my view of her a little. The heat of her skin warmed mine.

Her leg slid up the outside of mine and my hand slid over her hip, and down her soft bare thigh until my fingers curved around the back of her knee and hitched her leg comfortable around my hip. I loved the feel for her skin under my fingers. Under _anything_ of me, really.

She seemed to be getting ready to finally explain it all to me. Maybe our minds were in sync. I didn't know, but I did know that our bodies had most certainly aligned. I could _feel _it. Literally.

The powerful energy of what was burgeoning between us was zapping all along the spaces between our skins like little prickles. It wasn't sharp or painful though, this was soft and soothing, yet energizing all at the same time. It was the tickle of the shared imprint bond. It was flaming in a sweet pleasure in all the places that we touched. Her leg slid between mine, soft and silky, and smooth like satin: she was the embodiment of a flesh and blood _woman._

And that's what I didn't understand. What is _half_ human? Did her transformation not go all the way? Did they not use enough venom or something? She must have sensed my confusion, because she wiggled a little closer, tucking that stray ringlet behind her ear as her soft little foot slid up my leg and down again. Her touch was a balm to my soul.

"It's just easier to show you Jake. Do you know about the gifts some vampires have?"

I nodded. How could I forget the fortune telling that spoiled it all and the mind reading as we fought over _her _love? As I lay there though, in the quiet of the evening with the angel in my arms, I couldn't even remember why I had bothered to fight for Bella all those years ago. It was a shadow of the emotion and love I felt now. God, I'd been a fool, all that needless pain. Stupid boy had no clue was love was.

"I have a gift," she said looking up at me. She had an innocent and vulnerable look on her face as she asked, "may I?" Her hand then reached up and her soft, warm fingers cupped the side of my jaw.

I nodded. I trusted her explicitly.

Then out of nowhere, I had in my mind an image of me at the kegger as I fell to my knees when I first saw her. I looked like a man blinded, seeing the beautiful sun for the first time. The most pivotal moment in my entire life.

"I can show someone images and emotions simply from my touch," she said, before continuing, "and this… this is why I have a pulse Jacob," she said as my mind was filled with images and feelings.

I felt love and the warmth of a living breathing mother, before being launched in to the cold hands of Dr. Fang and then Edward. They were in a hospital type of room. Then I saw Bella—her mother, I assumed — lying like a skeletal figure on a bed, and the feeling of love and nurturing enveloped me. She showed me flashes of the woman's death, bursts of Edward biting her, over and over and over.

She showed me all of the Cullen vamps. All of them love her, and she showed me that she loves all of them too. An image of a newly turned Bella flashed in my mind. She was beautiful; gone was the clumsiness I'd once known. She was graceful, she was striking. Her eyes were blood red. The word _Mother _was placed into my head, confirming my suspicions.

I saw flashes of Renesmee's life. Only being semi-satisfied after hunting sitka deer with her uncles, being far more satisfied after drinking a bag of donated blood by her grandfather, being quite repulsed after being forced to try human food by her grandmother.

She showed me her speed, her strength, the exhilaration of running over an Alaskan glacier and her frustration at never being as fast at the rest of them.

Her longing to go to school and learn what is like to be normal human child. The growth chart indicating the incredible speed of her development. The driver's license that says she is eighteen years old. The Newspaper article detailing her mother's faked death, dating back only seven years.

Oh fuck. I jerked at the last image, sitting up abruptly but not breaking skin contact. She's only seven years old. I pulled my hand away from her leg so that we're touching less intimately.

"You're only seven?" I said, a maelstrom of emotion at this revelation. Oh god. Spirits help me. What have I done?

"Chronologically, yes," she rushed to answer. "But for all intense and purposes, I'm eighteen Jake. I've stopped growing. I will be this way for eternity."

* * *

.

* * *

"You're only seven and you're Bella's daughter?" he asked me, as if on repeat.

I nodded, desperately trying to read into his repetitive questions. I wasn't familiar enough with the nuances in conversation of a mainstream, modern community. I silent cursed my family for not equipping me with the knowledge I needed to act like a normal teenager in the twenty first century. "And Edward is my Biological father," I added in the light of full disclosure.

"You're only seven," he mumbled again. I could see the fight in his eyes. He was looking at me, seeing the woman I am, and then how he'd glaze over and think about my chronological age.

He was fighting between the logic, the primitive emotion and the attraction. I'd seen it in his eyes all evening, and in his hands and lips all night—Jacob was physically attracted to me. But there was so much more.

I could feel the relationship between us. It's was quite illogical. I had only known this man for just under two hours, and I already felt a connection to him that felt like a lifetime of trust and commitment. It was instinctual.

I felt safe in his arms. I felt loved by his gentle touch. I felt on fire from his scorching gaze. I loathed to have him think of me as child. He couldn't place human age values on me. I had to make him understand as much before he pulled completely away.

He moved to sit up even more, further distancing himself from me. Automatically my hand reached out and gripped his wrist, hard. "I'm not a child, I haven't been a child for a very long time. I've stopped growing now. Jacob, this is how I will look for an eternity. You don't have to be scared of my age. In all the ways that matter, I'm an adult Jacob. Please don't go!" my voice wavered with desperate emotion.

My behavior was so very irrational, I really didn't know this man. But the idea of him pulling away from me and fleeing caused a curious sensation in my chest. It was a burning ripping pain, like my proverbial heart had infiltrated my cardiac muscle and was ripping me apart. He couldn't leave me.

He froze at my touch, his gaze directing to where my hand was clenching his wrist tight. "Ow," he said wryly. I thought I could see a hint of humor in his eyes, but I was too terrified to focus on it.

"You're definitely stronger than you look," he murmured, more to himself than to me. I felt he was trying to convince himself of my maturity as much as I was.

Slowly, finger by finger, I loosened my grip on his arm.

"I am."

His eyes lifted up to mine, searching over my face. "I'm not going anywhere Nessie." As our eyes met, that unexplained, age old kindred spirit of unity washed over me once more. I liked that diminutive. Nessie.

Maybe it could be a private name that he reserved for the bedroom.

Like the one we were currently in.

Like a person transitioning between personalities, I swung from desperate and pleading, wanting him to accept me for what I was, to determined and heated, wanting to prove my maturity… physically.

I came up on my hands and knees on the bed, crawling the two foot of space he'd placed between us. All the while our eyes never broke contact… until I shifted my shoulders, my bare chest moving, the sweetly curved mounds were pendant beneath me… and his eyes lowered.

I felt a little guilt as I realized that I could use my body, and the gift that I had learnt that it was, to my advantage, at least in the short term. I would use it to keep him here until he understood.

I was not a child.

His eyes raked over my chest, as my arms held me up, slowly slinking closer to him. I noted the similarities to stalking prey and this erotic dance I was beginning. "Look at me Jacob," I said, lifting up to my knees, bearing myself to him. He did, his eyes roved over my skin, zigzagging across my body. "I am not a child."

I walked on my knees until I was almost on top of him. My hands reached for his, pulling him up until he too was kneeling on the bed. Our bodies aligned as we knelt face to face, naked and exposed, yet completely protected.

Gently, I took his hands in mine, lifting them up, and placing one of his hands on my waist and the other, more brazenly, on my breast. "This is not the body of child."

Then I lifted my hand, placing it gently on his chest, above his heart. _And mentally, I am not a child, _I said through my gift, showing him flashes of my collage experience so far, both academically and socially. The dancing with drunken fraternity brothers, my exploration of my own body as I'd developed physically, the exquisite sensation his hands and lips and body had brought out in me only minutes earlier.

_And I don't feel like I'm a child, _ I continued, sending him the mature emotions I'd developed over the last few years as I reached adolescence and now adulthood; rationality, sympathy, compassion. I showed him snippets of the discussions and arguments I'd had with my family— mostly my father—as I'd started to develop a sense of self-assertiveness and break away from my parents. He saw my ability to formulate and implement goals, like this experiment on sexuality that led me to this very point with is amazing specimen of a man I was kneeling, naked on a bed with.

I felt his fingers slide over a nipple as again I bombarded him with all my lustful feelings and memories of what the two of us had just shared physically, less than an hour ago. _And this here, _I said, my hands smoothing over the muscled chords of his chest and arms, floating over the ripples of his abdominals and gently wrapping my fingers around his relaxed penis before moving up and down along the length,_ this is completely grown-up_.

With one hand working him, I pressed my body flush with his, the other hand fanned across his shoulder blade, pressing his heated skin to mine_, we are two consenting adults who both very much want to be here._

I pulled away from him somewhat then, looking upwards in to his deep and absorbing eyes.

"I am a grown woman, Jacob, and I very much would like to know you better."

I could see the conflict in his eyes. As his fingers pinched at the nipple I'd so brazenly placed his hand on, I saw the moment the logic lost. The moment he saw me for as the woman he'd first seen at the kegger. The woman I felt like. The woman that wanted to taste his love again.

But we had more things to talk about.

My hand left his burgeoning erection, both arms winding around his neck as I leaned up and kissed him sweetly. I felt, taking my inexperience into consideration, I was doing quite well with the physicality of the sexual act and the intimacy of this fledgling relationship, or whatever it was. I didn't know what _this_ was, but it was not going to be a one-night-stand… Not if I could help it.

"Tell me more about you," I said, using my body weight to pull him down on top of me as I lay back on the pillows. "You're so hot," I said, my fingers tracing over his browns and down the sharp edge of his cheeks. "And you heal so fast… I don't know all that much, but I do know about your people. And I know about the protectors. Tell me about you, tell me about the wolf?"

* * *

.

* * *

The wolf inside of me rumbled with contentment as she pulled me down onto her naked skin and proceeded to ask about him.

I leaned to the side, pulling her with me as my arms wrapped around her little shoulders and she rested her head on my chest. I nuzzled my lips against the mark on her throat, resisting the canine urge to lick it as her fingers played with the very light spray of hair on my chest and her leg slid over mine as she wound herself around me.

My imprint wanted to know more about me. I couldn't have refused her if I'd wanted to. And I didn't want to. I wanted her to know me better than anyone in the entire world knew me. We were not going to have any secrets. Secrets breed mistrust and resentment. I'd learnt that first hand, after the elders so _wisely_ decided that us children didn't need to know—even hours before— that we were going to morph in giant dogs. The pack all held a lot of resentment to the tribal council over their role in making the life changing transition from normal res rat kid, to a four legged, demon killing, mythical creature, a lot harder than it needed to be. A lot of things changed after I became Alpha. Full disclosure and honesty being a big part.

"I come from a long line of Quileute warriors," I started softly, lifting of the sheets to turn off the side lamp before settling back next to her. One hand smoothed over her forehead and over the softest hair I'd ever felt. Her skin was luminescent in the moonlight beaming through the partially open window curtain. My eyes saw every curve of her features as if it has been broad daylight. I'd never seen anything so beautiful in all my days on this Earth.

Leah has a quote hanging in the front entry of her and JP's apartment in Seattle. The words flashed in my mind as I struggled over the rightness of telling her all the facts in my fucked up biography. _Love cannot make a home where lies and secrets sleep, _the plaque says. Leah had told him she was a wolf on their forth date. And because of her honesty, he'd been able to be there for her, every step of the way, as she'd given it up.

I wanted to make a home with this beautiful girl. There could be no lies and absolutely no secrets.

"I was sixteen when I first phased. I'd just been to see a movie with your mother."

"You knew my mother when she was human?" she asked, a presently surprised smile on her lips.

I look down at her, nodding and lovingly brushing a finger over her porcelain cheek before continuing. No secrets. "I thought I was in love with your mother back then."

I heard her gasp, but I kept powering through before I lost my nerve. "And for a little while she might have even loved me too. But it wasn't enough," I hurried to say, turning so that I could look directly in to her eyes and she could see the sincerity in my words.

"Because then he came back. She'd never stopped loving Edward. I was never really in the running. And then they got married, and I was so angry… and broken… for so long." Both of my hands were cupping her face as I shuffled down to be face to face with her. "And then tonight… at a stupid collage frat party," I laughed to myself. "You… you were there. And… my god, Renesmee…"I could hear the reverence in my own voice as I spoke her name. "I had no idea what love was, not until I walked out to that crappy, pot hazed courtyard and I saw you there. And my whole world changed. You are my whole word now. And I'm whole. I love you."

I saw oceans of reactions flash though her eyes. Shock and hurt, amazement and flattery. I saw the disbelief at my seemingly impulsive declaration of love and then the relief that the seemingly impulsive declaration held. She felt it too. She didn't understand it, but she felt the love.

I could see her sorting through all the information I'd told her. I watched her face as she internally categorized them.

Eventually, she quirked her head, looking up at me as she asked, "What do you mean he came back? Where did my father go?"

Shit.

I'd told her I used to love her mother, and her mother may have, kind of, loved me once too. I'd told her that I was in love with her after meeting her at a frat party only two hours earlier and all she had honed in on was the Edward had done a runner bit? Uh, uh, uh, there was no way on this freakn' planet that I was getting into that story. "That's your mother's story to tell," I said, shaking my head.

She nodded, almost undetectable and she seemed to file that line of questioning away for later. Much later, I hoped.

She closed her eyes for a few moments before they opened, he gaze now directed to my chest. I could see her eyes tracking as her hand traced up my breastbone, lifting off and hovering over my heart. With the steadiness of the supernatural, her palm just hovered there, just an inch from my skin; no further, no closer. She wasn't touching me, yet I could still feel her. The tickle of our bond was zapping between us.

"Why can I feel you every time we touch? And even like this, I can _feel_ you Jacob. On my skin and in my very _being_."

My hand slid up to hers, weaving my fingers through as I pulled her just that little bit closer.

No secrets.

I licked my lips and took a confidence boosting breath before answering. "It's called an imprint bond. I can feel it too." My voice was soft in the still and quiet night.

I could see her lift her head up from the pillow to look at me in the darkness, her eyes shone with little moon shaped reflections in the brown mesmerizing pools. "What's an imprint bond?"

"It's the mingling of two souls, Renesmee. When the wolf finds his counterpart in this universe, there is no one else, she becomes his everything, his world."

Again that image of me in the courtyard of the frat party, falling to my knees as our eyes met flashed into my mind. _Is that what that was?_

I nodded, kissing her temple, "yeah sweetheart, that was my soul finally meeting it's other half. You."

* * *

.

* * *

The soul of his wolf recognized me as its counterpart. But it's more than that, I can feel him; inside and out. I have such an illogical driving need to never leave his side. There is an overwhelming sensation of security when I am by his side.

Pulsing though my veins— if I have them that is, no one has ever been game enough to bite me to find out and risk encountering the wrath of well… the wrath of all of them. Pulsing though my body— possibly veins— and in to the very core of my spirit, was the strong physical attraction I felt towards Jacob.

It was as if everything about him physically was exactly to my taste.

I loved how his smooth caramel skin contrasted with my cream, how his soft pillow lips felt on mine, his broad shoulders as he held me close, his strong defined back that my fingers could hold on to, the play of the pectoral muscles on his chest as he held himself above me, his stomach as it rippled as his hips moved, his… well I'd done the research, his penis was well above average. In size and in girth.

And his eyes, they held me prisoner. Not that I ever wanted to escape his hold. They were so dark and deep and full of the love he'd only just declared to me.

He was made for me.

Body, heart and soul.

In every way, somehow, in only a few hours, he'd ticked off nearly all of the human experience I'd wanted to achieve while here studying at university. University. In California. Nowhere near his people in the Quileute valley.

I felt the constriction my chest at the thought of him maybe heading back to his home in the morning. I couldn't let that happen. Maybe he didn't want to leave me either.

I had to find out.

"Do you live in Washington?"

He paused for a moment. I assume in an attempt to try to understand the meaning behind my atypical response to his explanation of this 'imprint bond'.

It hadn't taken me long to process and accept his revelation. It all made sense to me. I'd seen it in my family. Each one so deeply in love with their partner. I'd seen it every day of my life with my mother and my father's love for one another. Their cold unbeating hearts alive once again inside the heart of the other. I understood that level of connection.

I'd wanted it all my life.

If he was going back to his home, I was going with him. My soul was demanding it.

With a curious smile on his lips, he finally replied, "Yes," nodded, his face brushing against the taupe colored sheets, "I live in La Push."

There was a questioning push to his smile as he waited for me to elaborate. He didn't realize that I'd already processed his confession, accepted it, and then moved on to the practicalities of such and all-encompassing bond.

I knew he needed clearer acknowledgement of my understanding from him, but I was too enthralled with his smile to care about interpreting the hidden question in it.

Because he was smiling…There is something about Jacob's smile, it lights him from within. It changes his already rugged and hansom face into something of the Gods. He is beautiful when he smiles. And was smiling at me.

It grabbed me by the ovaries once more. I wanted those lips on my body and those teeth biting through my skin.

I shifted and moved my still naked body so that I was pressed along the hard lines of his. My breasts pressed into his chest as my hips begin to roll over his now thick erection. Leaning down, I pressed my lips to his. Softly and sweetly I held my lips to his briefly, before pulling back and looking forlornly in to his eyes. We needed to sort the geography out.

"When do you have to go back?" I asked, gnawing on the inside of my cheek. The thought of me not being able to be there in my arms again that night, and every other night, made my insides churn.

His hands glided over the lines of my back, one hand cupping over my bottom as the other held onto my shoulder.

"I don't have to," he said, "I can stay as long as you'll have me."

With his words, I felt the freedom of his embrace lift me up. I leaned down once more, meeting his lips in a hot open mouth kiss, full of lust and love and longing. I realized, with an awakening of a long dormant metaphoric chamber of my heat, like a lotus flower opening to the early morning dewy dawn, that I was irrevocably, and interminably in love with this man.

My hand cupped the side of his chiseled face, as a smile stretched over my lips,_ I think I'd like to have you for an eternity._

* * *

**More to come soon.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks**** for all the lovely support guys. It's so encouraging. Here is the next installment (now that this web site is letting me log on to post it! :-| ) Hope you enjoy.**

**M**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

The morning found us both still undressed in his friend's bed, still with limbs intertwined like weaved strips of lattice on top of a luscious cherry pie, and it seemed we were both still unfaltering in our desire to continue the liaison we had started the night before.

The Californian sunlight forced its way through the unclosed curtains that had so welcomingly let in the moonlight the night before.

After a brief moment of comfortable silence, both of us lying face to face, his eyes so close I could see the minute valleys and rises of the stroma of his dark iris's, I slid my hand up to link with his. _Good morning,_ I said, not wanting to break the serenity of the moment with spoken voice.

"Good morning, Renesmee," he whispered, apparently feeling the same way about speaking too. "You know…" he mouthed quietly as his free hand reached around from where I had been using his bicep as a pillow and combed my curls back from my face, "you're even more beautiful in the light of day."

I could feel the heat of a blush rise on my cheek, an emotional response I rarely experienced. I had a suspicion that compliments from Jacob could make the flush become a more regular occurrence.

"The dawn has certainly reaffirmed my first thoughts of you when our eyes first met… That you'd do nicely for my first kiss… and anything else that followed."

He chuckled at my comment, and pulled me into a strong and secure embrace, his body pressing flush with mine, "I'm glad I could live up to expectations."

His hand weaved through my hair, pulling me closer. "Was it a nice first kiss?" he rasped, his warm sweet breath filling my lungs. I nodded, a little sigh escaping my lips. "And what about _all that followed?_ You're not too sore?"

I shook my head, showing him with my gift the strength of my hybrid body and then the exquisite sensations I'd experienced at his explicitly talented hands. "All that followed that kiss surpassed expectations," I smiled, the flush heating my cheeks once more.

"Well then, I better not disappoint you in any subsequent kisses or _anything else's_ then, should I?" he teased, his lips pressing sensually against mine. His heat melting and setting my insides alight as it had done already so many times.

Last night had be the most singular spectacular night of my existence. Once we had reveled our true selves to each other, and then decided that none of it mattered, he made love to me once more. And then again.

We had talked all night, Jacob and I, delving into each other's intellects. We spent hours discovering the minds behind the other person we were both now devoted to. He was my wolf and I was his imprint. We'd laughed and we'd awed.

We were almost too perfectly suited. At times I could see how we balanced each other, he was my yin to his yang. Then there were times were we were both so alike, with similar opinions and wants and desires. Namely each other. In a matter of hours, he become my best friend.

I left like I knew his family and his pack already. From his loving descriptions, I felt like La Push was already my home. We'd declared our love for each other once more, and once more my wolf took my body to heights I never knew it could reach. Finally, in the early hours of the morning, satisfied and sated, we fell asleep still joined, wrapped in each other's arms.

Now, in the quite of the Sunday morning peace, Jacob's hands traced over the lines of my body. He held me close and peppered his lips over my jaw and throat, his tongue flicking and sucking at the bite mark he had so spontaneously made hours earlier. It sent a shiver of pleasure over my skin at his attention.

I could feel the heat growing within me, a combination of his increased metabolic temperature—which I had learned was a consequence of his shape shifting capabilities— and the way his very human hands felt on my skin and the sensation he could elicit with nothing more than a delicate touch.

I was experiencing the sensations of that touch, my eyes closed and my hands weaved through his short glossy black hair, when the sound of gurgling intruded in to the room. His kisses stopped momentarily, and our eyes met before he ducked his head down again, his lips finding the sensitive skin around my nipple and his heated tongue flicked at the erect bud. It sent that pulsing sensation into my vulva with each drawing suck.

Then, once again, the room was filled with the squeaking, gurgling borborygmus rumble.

Again he broke away, looking up at me with a contrite purse of his lips. "Sorry," he laughed, crawling up along the length of my body.

"You're hungry?" I asked, the inconvenience of how often humans have to eat was becoming very apparent.

He nodded, biting his lower lip as he slipped backwards off the side of the bed. "Come on," he said with resignation as he gently tugged me up by my hand, "let's see if we can rustle up some grub."

With me wrapped in nothing but a cool white sheet, I leant against the counter in the cramped kitchenette and watched as he, with nothing on but a pair of boxer shorts slung low around his hips, rummaged through the cupboards and refrigerator

"How the hell does Seth not have anything decent to eat?" he groused, pulling out an almost empty bottle of juice and a half loaf of bread. With the exacting finesse of a man half-staved, he loaded the toaster with four slices and then, two minutes later, was loading it up with another four. He was back looking for condiments before I could tell him I didn't need anything. I'd hunted only the day before last.

"You like jelly or cheese whiz?" he'd asked with his head in the refrigerator, one arm braced on the door. I found myself admiring the way the muscles of his back were accentuated by the refrigerator light, the way the lines and the shadows of his musculature undulated as he searched. I'd appreciated those muscles with my hands only hours earlier, but I hadn't truly realized just how well-built he was. He was broad shouldered, rippled, and exuded masculinity with his natural power.

I found myself curiously fighting the urge to step over to him and lick my way up that valley of muscle running along his spine.

"Ness?" he asked, looking at me over his shoulder, that curious urge now extending to his square jaw and the fine spray of stubble that had appeared overnight.

And then to his lips; full and soft, and so beautiful when he smiled.

"NESS?"

"Huh?"

He smiled further, a gentle chuckle escaping, "Do you like jelly or cheese?" he asked as he straightened and turned, holding the two jars out in front of my face. I found myself struggling to look at the proffered condiments and not the bulk of latissimus dorsi muscle of his back that wrapped around his sides and sat defined and taunting me, goading me to duck down and lick it as he raised his arms.

"Ah…" Neither of the options seemed particularly appetizing to me, liver paste or maybe some roast beef would have been more palatable to my protein based diet. "Cheese?" I shrugged—at least it had come from an animal originally.

I once again felt myself mesmerized by the play of his musculature, the rock-hard muscles of his biceps as he buttered and prepared a mountain of toast as our makeshift breakfast. He looked up at me, a knowing smile gracing his lips as he bounced his pectorals. His intrinsic athleticism apparent with the lack of even a small disturbance of his hand as he continued to butter the toast. "You like what you see lover-girl?" he stirred.

I nodded silently, the compulsion to feel the topography his skin finally getting the better of me. I found myself stepping towards him, my hand smoothing over his back and resting lightly on his shoulder. I realized, as a glowing sense of contentment flowed through me, that prior to coming into the kitchen, we'd not broken physical contact since he'd first taken me by the hand at the party the night before. I think Jake felt the same, a contented purr radiated though his chest into mine as we reconnected physically.

I watched over his shoulder as he smeared the orange-yellow spread and felt the radiant heat of his skin as he'd then unconsciously leaned into me too. I kissed the smooth skin of his bare arm, my lips surging with his warmth and that tingling connection of what I now knew was named our imprint bond, before taking the slice he handed to me.

He hoisted me up, sitting me on the counter and leaned his hip against my leg, where it peaked though the sheet. We ate in companionable silence the energy still coursing where we touched. In reality, I forced down one slice—for courtesy's sake—as Jacob all but inhaled the other slices. He'd explained to me that he had a large appetite, but this was certainly a sight to behold, his enthusiasm and capacity to consume food was something I'd never seen before.

As he picked up his seventh slice I swallowed the last of my one and washed it down with the juice—I'd discovered that Californian orange juice really was quite agreeable. "Do you always eat so much?" I asked.

With a full mouth he nodded, "this is just a starter. We're gunna have to go find something more substantial soon. But first," he smiled, swallowing and finishing the last of his orange juice, "we have some unfinished business to attend too."

With supernatural speed, I found myself swept into his arms, and almost four meters down the narrow hallway before I could even wrap my arms around his neck and modify my stifled squeak to a more attractive giggle. He paused at the entry of the bedroom we'd slept in, turning and carrying me into the little, all-in-one bathroom on the other side.

He leaned into the shower stall and started the water before placing me gently on my feet. His hands found the edges of the sheet I had been using as substitute night clothes and slowly, seductively, he pulled the corners from my fingers and let the cotton fall in a velvety pool at my feet.

"Shower with me," he said, taking me by the hand and leading me into the tiny cubicle. The water spray was warm and soon steam filled the room. His hands, lathered with soap, began to clean every inch of my skin and my hands were also soon roving over the lines of his magnificently rampant body.

With slippery, slick fingers he played with nipples that were hardened from his touch. His mouth captured mine with hungry urgency. My hand then found its way over the muscles that rippled beneath the surface of his abdomen and wrapped around his hard and erect penis. With soapy hands my fist started to pump. The soft, silky feel of his skin contrasted with the hard, tensile beauty of his exquisite masculinity as it slid beneath my fingers. It sent a fresh wave of moisture to the heat between my legs.

His hands soon found their way down to my center, gently rubbing and playing with my pleasure. A mumbled moan reverberated between our heated lips as I felt the first phase of an orgasm begin to mount. My body started to move of its own accord, and my hand was now pumping his need in time to my own.

A pressure was building inside of me. Physically and emotionally. I felt myself quite overcome with a need for more. I suddenly wanted more than the humanly confined sex we'd shared last night. I felt the primal creature inside of me surfacing and I wanted him to tame that beast within me with a heavy hand and a thick phallus. I_ can take so much more, Jacob. Show me how much power the Alpha wolf has, Jacob. Show me._

The echo of his growl reverberated around the steamy cubicle as he processed my challenge.

Instantly, I found myself being lifted up and pressed into the poorly grouted tiles of the wall. My legs wrapped around his hips as, in one pointed thrust, he buried himself deep within me. The sharp, delicious pleasure of his consumption filled me with a new surge of desire. My hands clawed at his shoulders, pulling him to me, asking him silently for more. With my gift, I was begging him for harder and faster as our lips and tongues consumed in a savagely intense kiss.

My thoughts seemed to act like an animalistic trigger. He started to move with more force with each plea I sent him. His mouth became more hungry, his grunts more visceral with each demand for more. And I loved every last second of his onslaught.

The intercourse we shared last night had been intense. That first time had been the satiation of hedonistic, animalistic lust and the clinical longing of experiencing sex firsthand. Then the love making that followed had been the bringing together of two souls, and the sealing of a loving bond.

This coming together in the shower however, it was the uniting of two supernatural beings in their prime. We were mating. With each thrust, small hexagons of tiles broke away from the wall. Any human woman would have long been rendered unconscious by the incessant pounding. But my body took it all.

I took all of him and asked for more.

We were wild. My hands clawing and biting over his skin as his hips snapped in hard violent thrusts. The bathroom was filled with guttural grunts and cries. My mind was consumed with his scent and his power. My mate was virile. My mate was strong. He was mine.

The water had long turned cold when, with the power of supernatural love, we finally exploded in a heated, transcending climax. Both of us came together, screaming out one another's names before we both, once again, camped our teeth over the others neck.

Jacobs's mouth bit into my skin, over the same spot that I still bared the mark of. His teeth in my flesh sent a second climax through my core. I cried out again, in primal exultation and also latched on, letting the warm, life blood of my mate wash through me.

He continued to pump in to me. Slowing until each thrust was like a locomotive coming to stop and his lips kissed over the dual crescents on my shoulder.

Sated in every way possible, I unlocked my teeth from his skin, licking a little trickle of blood as it rolled over his clavicle before the wound healed before my eyes.

* * *

.

* * *

Hoy fucking shit.

That was, by far, the most amazingly fucking, spectacular experience of my life. Wolf sex with Renesme was out of this world. She'd just keep bombarding my brain with images of us going harder, and words that demanded more. I let go of that leash on my wolf, and he gave his mate all that she asked for.

And I got just as much back in return.

I'd seen imprint sex in the minds of the pack, it was undoubtedly the best sex of a wolf's life. But none of my bothers had an imprint who was quite as unbreakable. No one else had a mate who could not only take the physicality of the wolf, but a mate who wanted it as hard as the wolf could give it. And I'd given it to her good.

She'd let me mark her again, and in return I'd let her drink. Both of us had had a second wave of pleasure because of it.

We'd ruined Seth bathroom, most of the tiles were off the wall, and there was a large crack in the shower screen. We'd fix it tomorrow.

Today was all about Renesmee… and about getting something decent to eat. A boy's gotta keep his strength up.

.

So, two and a half hours after first waking up, I found myself driving Seth's shitty Chevy to Ness's apartment.

She'd laughed the first time I'd called her Ness, but Renesmee seemed like such mouthful. Apparently no one had given her a nickname apart from her uncles who had decided on 'pumpkin head' as an infant, which she said she hated. But when the name had fist slipped out, in the darkness of the bedroom, her face still a flush from the heat of her breathtaking orgasms, she'd smiled her beautiful smile at me, and said that she quite liked this moniker. Whatever the hell a _moniker_ is.

"I'm almost certain that we have a full dozen eggs and some bacon at my home," she said, scooting over the bench seat and snuggling into my side as I drove with one hand on the wheel, the other hand curled around her hip and tucked into her tiny waist.

I leaned over, pressing my nose into the top of her head and drawing in a giant lungful of her unadulterated, cotton candy, aphrodisiac perfume. "Mmmmm," I hummed, "you have no idea how good you smell, Ness. It makes it very hard to concentrate on the road, or anything else apart from fucking you right here in this truck for that matter."

Her legs curled up on the seat as she settled deeper against my side, her face pressing against my chest, her hand finding the skin bared at the bottom of my t-shirt, her palm pressed hard against my abs. _Only as good as you smell to me_, she said into my head. Then a rich, warm, musky spice filled my senses and a sensation of deep attraction and contentment followed.

It truly was an amazing gift she had.

"Really? That's what I smell like to you? You're family always said we smelled revolting, like wet dog."

"Oh no," she purred, reaching up and kissing the edge of my jaw. "It may be animalistic, but there is nothing repulsive about your scent Jake," with her lips still lingering by my jaw, she very pointedly inhaled and a soft pleasured whimper sounded in my ear. "Your sent is pure sex with a pulse to me."

Her voice was soft and husky, and it sent a surge blood rushing to my dick and a low, barely audible growl though my chest. We were stopped at a red light and I took the opportunity to take her face with both hands and pull her lips to mine. My tongue invaded her mouth with a heated urgency and she responded the same, sucking on my tongue, and sending another surge of want directly to the tip of my dick.

For several minutes, we sat in the truck, making out like teenagers until we were unceremoniously honked at by several of the cars behind us. We broke apart, and once again set off down Le Conte Avenue. "Turn right here," she said with a pleased chucked in her voice.

.

Parking was tight this part of the city and I had to park the truck up the street from her apartment. I didn't mind, it was nice to just walk hand in hand, side by side up the smooth footpath. There was something every-day like about it. I felt like we were just two normal college kids, in love and walking home after a wild night of partying. We _had _been at a partly, for about twenty minutes, but then we'd shifted the party back to Seth's place, and to the bedroom. Yeah it had been a wild one. And yeah, we were in love. But there was noting normal about either of us.

Her killer heels dangled from her fingers as she tiptoed, avoiding the gum on the sidewalk. She was still dressed in the little black number she'd had on last night. Her long mass of auburn ringlets were haphazardly falling down her back and her pink pouty lips looked like she'd just stepped out the pages of a Vogue magazine, not a piece of shit 1997 Chevrolet 1500 with a dodgy clutch.

We came to the frosted glass doors of the lobby of her building. I stood by her shoulder, my body hovering just behind her, my fingers playing with the curls hanging down her back as she typed in the pin on the lock. The door opened with a resounding click as she pressed the handle and stepped inside. "Come on lover, breakfast awaits. We've got to get your strength back, ASAP," she smirked, winking as she took me by the hand and led me up the echoing stairs to her shared apartment on the third floor.

At the front door she paused, cocking her ear and listening to the sounds from inside. "Well it seems Amber certainly had an eventful night," she scoffed. "There's three heart beats inside." From what she'd told me, I somehow doubted her flat mate and her had been properly matched. But then again, who was gunna match with a seven year old, half-human, half-vampire telepath?

I listened also, not wanting to walk into some kind of kinky ménage à trois. I heard the sound of a pan frying, and dishes clinking, a feminine voice had giggled after a sharp slap of skin which was followed by a duller thud of muscle colliding and a baritone cuss. With a fatalistic sigh I realized that I knew that voice. Renesmee was right, there were three heartbeats, one faster, lighter human beating heart and two slower, stronger, _wolf-like_ rhythms. Two heartbeats that I knew all too well.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I'd grumbled. Renesmee looked at me curiously over her shoulder as she let herself in. "You'll see," I responded to her unasked question, gesturing her inside.

"You're going to eat me out of house and home!" the owner of the human heart beat—Amber— was complaining but not at all sounding peeved as she talked to the fuckers in the kitchen, her voice drifting up the hall to us as we walked down.

Ness called out as we rounded the corner, "I hope you're wearing clothes because I'm home and I have a hungry man on my heels."

"Oh Carlie!" sang a blond haired girl standing at the stove in nothing more than a tank top and boy shorts. "I'm just cooking some breakfast, you want eggs?" she asked as she'd looked at us over her shoulder, her eyes had done a double take as she saw me standing behind Ness. I supposed she'd noticed the inevitable similarities with the two starving wolves who were sitting at her kitchen table.

"Yeah, but I don't know if there'll be enough for all three of these here strapping lads," she'd sang as she'd dropped my hand and walked directly over to the table, holding out her hand to my pack brothers.

"Well, hello gentlemen, fancy seeing you here," she smiled. "Let me introduce myself again," she said formally, holding her hand out first to Seth, "I'm Carlie."

Both my pack brothers had contented, goofy grins plastered across their faces. As we'd walked in the room they'd started smiling at the way we were both still dressed in last night's clothes, and again deliberately scenting the air, a satisfied rumble bouncing across the kitchen as the mixture of alpha and his mate hit them. Our _power-couple_ scent really was intense and unmistakably a force to be reckoned with, little did my brothers know just how powerful my mate truly was.

But the moment Ness has started to speak to them directly, the contented grins left their faces and were instead replaced by wide eyed panic and uncertainty. It wasn't from being addressed by Renesmee, it was by the look of challenge I was shooting their way over her shoulder.

Embry and Seth had both reeked of sex, lots of it, and the idea of her scent being tainted with theirs set my nerves on edge. As good as I'd been feeling after the night we'd just had, I still didn't want another male touching her, even her hand.

Seth shot me a look asking for consent, but my eyes narrowed in refusal. My chest started rumbling and like a good wolf, his hand stayed firmly in place around his fork.

With her hand left swinging in mid-air, Ness had looked at me over her shoulder, an irritated scowl forming on her still gorgeous face. "Oh no you don't," she scolded me. "If I want to shake your brother's hands, then I will." Her tone left no room for argument, the feistiness of her vampiric side coming out.

"One more time," she said obstinately, turning back to Seth, "I'm Carlie." Her hand jerking upwards and outwards in a second offering.

Seth looked between Renesmee and I, back and forth his eyes tracked, his hand still wrapped tightly around his unused fork, his face switching between a mixture of anxiety and platonic interest.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Embry huffed from the other side of the table. He stood and reached over the table top to take Renesmee's hand. "It's nice to meet you again Carlie, don't mind him," he said, inclining his head and looking at me pointedly. "It's hard to snap out of a seven year funk."

Embry Call… my beta, by best friend, bastard… and still not afraid of the Alpha after all these years.

"Brothers?" the temporarily forgotten, high-pitched voice of Amber pierced the air. "That's some extraordinary genetics your family have," she said as she walked over with a plate in each hand piled with bacon and eggs. She placed one in front of Embry, leaning over and landing him with a long, very deep throated kiss before pulling back and placing the other dish in front of Seth and sitting down on his lap.

"What about me?" Seth smirked, as his hand snaked around her waist. Then Amber and Clearwater preceded to make out around the pinewood table while Embry scoffed down his eggs and Ness made me a plate for me with what was left in the pan.

When the porn theatrics were over, and the bacon became a priority, we found ourselves at a strangely comforting and yet frustrating breakfast. Comforting because of the immensely satisfying feeling I had from being feed by my mate combined with the all-round scent of well sexed coupling, or in their case trio_-ing –_wafting around all five of us. But frustrating as hell because all three of the other supernatural beings sitting around the table with me all seemed to be desperate to find out more about each other.

I could tell Nessie was dying to find out more about the pack and to have an opportunity to reveal her own true nature to Seth and Emb. She'd told me as much with her gift as her fingers brushed over my hand. And I knew my pack brothers were gunna want to sniff all over her and then phase in and have an across-state pack meeting to bring the others who were back home up to speed. But the tanned blond still perched on Seth's lap was preventing any kind of honest introduction or wolfy appraisal.

"So, Carlie," started Embry as he wiped up the last bit of yolk off his plate, and stuffed the toast in his face, "you and Jake here get a chance to really get to know each other yet? He tell you all about our _family_?" he probed, discreetly trying to gauge her reaction to our tribal secret.

She took another tiny sip of her herbal tea, I noticed she'd only had a third of the cup. I'd have to find out more about that. Don't want my mate fading away. Mind you, she could always just bite me again, now that the wolf and I had time to process it, it was actually a massive turn on.

"We did Embry, we talked a lot. Jake told me pretty much his whole life story and so did I. In fact," she grinned, winking at me, happy her little/huge secret was still a secret, "we figured out that our families are old friends. We all go way back. Generations back."

"You're from Forks?" Seth asked.

Renesmee shook her head, "No, I was born in Anchorage, but my parents were; back in the day."

"Well, they probably knew some of our parents, or maybe my step dad. Charlie's the chief of Police up there."

She clutched my hand tight underneath the table. _ Charlie Swan? Is Seth my mother's step-brother, Jake? _An emotion of longing and curiosity filled my mind. I realized that she mustn't have ever met Charlie, her closest _living _relative.

I squeezed her delicate hand under the table, promising her _and_ myself that I'd change that situation when I took her home. That was assuming she'd want to come with me to my home. I felt a moment of panic at the thought of being separated from my imprint. I'd barley survived Bella leaving me.

I knew I wouldn't survive separation from my Renesmee.

Then I felt our bond pulse. I don't know how, but instinctively, I knew she understood my feelings. We operated on the same wave length, Ness and I.

I think she felt my sudden panic and she gripped my hand even tighter in reassurance. My hand throbbed with her strength. And I knew I'd never let us be apart for any length of time, and that she wouldn't let us be separated either.

We'd been sitting in separate seats during breakfast, but our chairs were pushed together and the entire length of my right side was touching hers. She turned to look at me, her deep dark eyes were soft and shimmering in the morning light. She looked up at me with a sense of love and reassurance in those windows to her soul. She had the curtains open for me and I swear I saw myself reflected back.

A small smile was on her lips and she was nodding her surety almost undetectably. Her comfort wrapped around me like a reassuring mental hug. And I felt myself relax and even realized the relief seeping from my flesh as I contemplated the potential benefits of sharing the heavy burden of Alpha with a partner in life.

This woman was everything I could possibly ask for in a mate. She was smart and quick witted, more than just a pretty face. But what a pretty face, such beautiful creamy soft skin, full pink lips and those eyes were framed by long sweeping lashes. Her body was tall and slender yet still feminine, with soft curves that begged to be held and had. She held herself with such natural confidence. Even without the bias of the imprint, it was obvious that Renesmee was a beautiful woman, both inside and out. The outside I'd explored thoroughly last night and then again this morning, but the inside I was only just cracking the surface of. I planned on understanding the inner working of this spectacular woman. Already I could see she was kind and supportive, she'd be a perfect alpha's mate.

It pleased the wolf in me to see her so readily accept my pack mates. And the man in me was gaining more and more confidence that this was a woman would want to spend the rest of my life with, regardless of the supernatural. I'd love her even without the imprint.

She shifted her hand in mine, turning our palms so they we were touching and her fingers weaved in between mine. She looked back at my pack brother who seemed oblivious to the silent conversation flowing between his Alpha and his new mate. My eyes drifted to Embry's, he'd seen it. Embry always noticed everything.

My beta was suddenly looking at Renesmee like she was a puzzle, like her eyes were somehow familiar. They were. He was looking at her like maybe he knew her from somewhere and was trying to place her. He didn't. But her parents, we knew them, all too well.

"Oh, I'm sure my mom would have known the Chief, Seth. She knew people from the town _and_ the reservation." Ness smiled at Seth then her face turned and she locked eyes with Embry for a heartbeat before her eyes meeting mine. Our eyes locked and just our gaze alone seemed to communicate volumes; Desire and attraction, reassurance and comfort. Then my soul was suddenly full, I felt her projections of an aching heart that was then filled with heat and warmth and love. Then my mind was filled with our previous conversation last night about her mother. And my very being felt like it was overflowing. It left no doubt her feelings on the matter of her Mother and me.

_She might have been your friend, but I will be your soulmate Jacob. Your soulmate._

"Wow, what are the odds Jake," Seth exclaimed. "What are the chances of your im—" he cut himself off, glancing at the blond still on his lap, "what are the chances of you meeting a girl whose family is from the Pacific Northwest? It's fate Jake, fate."

"Oh you don't know the half of it Sethy, not even half," I chuckled, leaning in and landing a soft kiss on the crescent bite mark on Nessie neck as I stood to collect the empty plates. My lips lingered at her throat, "Soulmate," I whispered, nipping at the mark with my lips. I sensed the shiver of desire that ran over her skin. It matched mine as our eyes met.

I straightened, stepping over to the sink and she flowed with me, like a magnet being invisibly towed along. That gravitational pull of our bond once again hummed between us as I turned on the water to fill the sink. I had nothing but eyes for the beautiful angel smiling up at me as I held out my arms as she fell against my chest. That feeling of rightness coursed through me as our bodies touched. My entire being was at peace as my lips lowered to hers. I relished in the softness of her lips and the way her body pressed into me. Her sweet breath was intoxicating in its exquisiteness. The spray of the water as it jetted into the sink reminded me of our shower only an hour earlier. My body started to heat and harden at the memory. My hands wrapped around her ass and pulled her softness into my hard, pulsing cock. I wanted her again.

"I pretty sure you two did a lot more than talk," the roommate giggled, breaking our soapy love bubble. Amber stood from Seth's lap and turned to face both men, "that was _very_ stimulating to watch," she said, clearly _not_ oblivious to the mind play going on between Renesmee and me. "I'm gunna take a shower. You two want help me?" she invited, turning her charm onto Emb and Seth.

I couldn't begrudge her blatant advances towards my bothers. I can't imagine anyone could witness the strong emotions coursing out of the two of us and not feel a tenth of the pull. The others in this room were witnessing the bonding of two souls that I could tell was going to last for all ages. It pulled at your heart and it rubbed at your core like the never ending gravity of the moon on the ocean waves, lapping at the sand and soaking it in the brine.

Even without the imprint pull messing with our heads, I'd say even a human nose would have sensed the pheromones and lust in the air. I know I could. And it was getting harder and harder to stay clothed and in the company of others by the minute.

But neither wolf took her bait. The pull to find out more about the Packs new imprint was greater than the lure of shower sex. The three of them would never fit in a shower anyway.

"You go Amy," Embry smiled.

"It's Amber," she bristled.

"Oh god, sorry, _Amber_. You go take that shower. We're gunna help Jake do the dishes," he said to the girl with Seth nodding in agreement.

"All right then," she sang good naturedly. "You don't know what you're missing out on." Then she turned on her heels and disappeared, tank top and boy shorts and all, up the hall.

With the human now out of ear-shot, Seth pounced. "So he really told you everything?"

"Ah ha," Ness answered, turning her chest, her hips still pressed to mine.

"And you're okay with it?"

"Of course," she chuckled as she pulled her hair over her shoulder subsequently exposing the fresh mark on her throat. I bent down, nuzzling the two curved lines, claiming it as mine and letting her know how much I loved her acceptance of me and my pack.

Seth's eyes widened. "Is that why she smells so good?" he asked me. I simply shrugged, smelling the delicious scent wafting from her hair, she'd smelled freaking awesome to me since the moment I walked in to that frat house.

"Do you have any idea how good you smell to us?" he asked her.

She laughed at that, "I think have an inkling. You three haven't stopped scenting the air since we got here. Does the alpha pair really smell that good?"

_I know you do,_ she said privately to me only.

"I don't know if that's why, but it is really freakn' good," Embry answered. "But more so, we're just happy he's found you. He's had shitty time with girls, but you… well, this is something we've all been waiting for" he gave her a single look over, his eyes sparkling with mischief. "And I think he's pretty much hit the jackpot with you."

My chest started to involuntarily rumble at the thought of another male appreciating anything about my Ness. The edges of the sink creaked in complaint as my fingers bit into the stainless steel. But Embry simply chuckled, his laugh only getting louder with my growl.

"Shh Jake," she said gently, her hand pressed flat upon my chest. _Don't be so protective. No one else will ever _know_ me Jacob. Only you. Only ever you._

She lifted up on to her toes and pressed a soft kiss to my lips. Slowly, like melted caramel my hostility dissolved away. Our lips began to dance. Deeper and deeper she pushed the kiss, until my hands left the wet water on the sink and I pulled her face closer. My tongue danced around the edges of her lips before they parted and I sought entrance to her mouth. Her tongue flicked with mine and my breath left my chest in burst of heated desire. Her hips pressed into my raging erection, pressing in time to each our synchronized heart beats. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders her nails digging through the cotton of my shirt. One of my hands left her cheek, slowly grazing down her chest to a breast. I wanted to take her right now, on the kitchen counter.

_Do it,_ she urged. _ Take me here Jake. Make me yours. Claim me._

With the speed that the thought hit, I hit it back out. My consciousness was suddenly aware of our audience and their stupid smirking sniggers. Fuckers were getting off on our newly found obsession with one another. The mating instinct was so fucking strong, for both of us.

I was panting as I pulled away, leaning my forehead to hers as we caught breath. "Later," I said in a fast out breath. I turned to face the sink and flicked off the faucet with a silencing swipe.

With a resigned sigh and blissful hum, Ness leaned her hip against mine. Instantly my mind was back to the yielding lines of her curved body. I could feel the softness of her thigh pressing against me. My arm wrapped around her, my hand brushing the underside of her breast as I pulled her close. I leaned my face into her lovely mass of curls; curls that hung around us both as she rode me from above last night. Oh man she's beautiful and smart, and kind, and witty and just perfect… and fucking sexy too.

I took one last gulp of the heady combined sent of our sex and of our arousal, reminding my dick that it would have to behave for twenty more minutes. I turned my focus again back towards the sink, my hands searching in the frothy water for the sponge when suddenly there was a loud crash from the front door. The next thing I knew I was up against the fridge, with ice-cold, bleach reeking hands gripping tightly around my throat.

The boys started growling, their forms shivering as they struggled to not phase in the little apartment kitchen.

Ness screamed with the sudden intrusion that ripped me from her side, "Daddy don't!" she shouted.

I brought a hand up and gripped the arm holding me by the throat. My eyes searched over the face I'd not seen for many years. Still smooth and pale, unchanged and shooting hatred at me at that very minute. I held a steady stare in to the light golden eyes of a creature I'd once loathed more than anything else on this planet.

The cold pale eyes of Edward Cullen.

My Imprints father. A creature I could no longer hate. A creature I was most likely going to spend an eternity in the midst of.

The leach was growling at me, his hissing rumble getting steadily louder until it formed into words, "You will never touch my daughter again. Do you hear me Black?"

* * *

**:-D**


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you all, so much, for your kind words and reviews. You guys rock. Don't hate on Eddie too much. His just an overprotective dad with a daughter that's grown up too fast for his liking (or his unchanging Vampire mind)**

**Speaking of; happy fathers day to all you overprotective dad's out there. (It's Fathers day here in Oz) Your daughters thank you... eventually.**

**Hope you like where I've taken this chapter. I've given every one a little more restraint than they deserved. It's only short (for me) and it's all in Nessie's PoV.**

**Namaste, Marina.**

* * *

"_You will never touch my daughter again. Do you hear me Black?"_

_._

**Chapter 4**

The other two wolves had been growling menacingly until the men inside, who had still managed to hold on to their own skins, had had the time to process daddy's words and who had said them.

"Edward?" Seth said, his simple word was a question, a statement and an expression of betrayal I didn't understand.

"Daughter?" Embry asked, straightening from his aggressive stance. "She's his _daughter_? What the fuck is going on Jake?"

Jacob's eyes left the gemstone yellow of my father's and flicked to the worried and confused eyes of his pack brother. They shared a silent message with simply their eyes. The Alpha of the pack was asking his Beta to trust in him. We had not had a chance to explain my heritage to the other wolves in the room and now my father's rash and meddling behavior had potentially put us all at risk. The vampires, the wolves, and the humans. Amber was still in the bathroom but I could hear the water turning off. There was much at stake, with little time to enlighten. There was not any room for impulsive actions.

I placed a firm hand on my father's shoulder squeezing the marble-like surface. My eyes met Jacob's as dad still held him by the throat. I was proud of Jacob, he was tremoring slightly, but had resisted phasing. Even with a vampire so directly threating him. I can't imagine the restraint that must take for a wolf.

"You have it wrong Renesmee," my father sneered, listening— as always— to my thoughts. His head inclined towards me as he squeezed Jacobs's throat tighter. "I think he's shown a distinct _lack_ of restraint."

Jacob's eyes flashed back to my fathers, a cold look of loathing blinking across his face before it morphed in to a smirk. I can only assume he started to recall just how _unrestrained_ we'd been earlier in the shower and even earlier during the night. My wolf already knew of daddy's gift of mind reading and was using it as the only weapon he safely had at his means.

"Why you… disgusting dog," daddy hissed, his hand tightening on Jake's trachea.

I felt a little twinge between the bond that had developed between my mate and me. I felt a stab of his fear and my own panic that accompanied. My father was going to kill him.

"Dad, don't!" I snarled at him though gritted teeth. He just could not understand that I was an individual, capable of making my own choices. He always thinks he knows better. "Stop this madness."

"Renesmee," dad hissed, turning his head further but not taking his eyes off Jake. "My car is parked at the front of the building, go downstairs now; I have to speak with your_ friend._"

"NO!" I cried. "I'm not going anywhere. You cannot talk to him! Or, try to intimidate him or threaten him, or whatever it is you think you're going to do! Moreover, he is not simply my friend, _Edward. _He so much more. He's my wolf and I'm his _imprint_." There was not even a flicker of surprise on his face to my admission. The omniscient know-it-all had almost certainly acquired all the facts from all our brainwaves already.

"Yes Renesmee, I've got too much information, _far_ too much," he answered back.

I could not believe this was occurring. I had just had the most remarkable night of my life. I had met my equal. I had bonded with my soulmate. I had experienced sexual pleasure greater that I could have ever envisaged. I had felt a connection and depth of relationship far greater than anything I had ever experienced previously.

I had met my mate. I had fallen in love. This should have been the most jubilant day of my life...But my father was fucking it all up.

"What are you even doing here?" I asked, frustration coloring my tone as I turned to my father who was still holding Jake at arm's length… by the larynx.

"Alice saw your future go blank late last night. And you've not been answering your cell. We were worried. We came to find you."

Oh.

My cell.

I had still not developed the habit of talking it with me when I left the apartment. All my life, I had never had the use for one. I suppose that was because I have never been left alone long enough to require one. Even unaccompanied, I still did not see the need of a mobile telephone; I was an immortal, superhuman, hybrid. Unlike many of my peers walking home, alone, late at night, I had little to fear in this human world. And even less at a crowded fraternity party.

I should have guessed they would worry. But… "Why would my future go blank?"

"She can't see us," Jake answered, his breath a husky wheeze as my overbearing father continued to hold him at arm's length—still by the larynx.

"Who?"

"Your Aunt Alice," dad said. "She can't see the wolves."

I wondered if my future had disappeared the moment Jake and I imprinted or when we'd mated, a memory of his naked body moving above me, in and out flashed through my mind.

"It's their mere presence that block her, not the things they do," dad hissed.

I reached a single finger to my father's cheek, pressing against the marble skin. _Father, if you don't like it, don't listen._

"You know I have no choice, sweetheart."

My arm dropped to my thigh with a loud slap that echoed through the room. Oh, yes he did. There was an excellent way for him not to intrude on my innermost thoughts.

"Where's mom?" I asked, letting the irritation emerge. Her mind-shield would be quite convenient right now.

"I told her to wait in the car," my father answered automatically.

Typical chauvinistic dictator. Heaven forbid Bella be included in anything less than savory. Like my father attempting to intimidate and rip the throat out of her old friend and my new mate. Who incidentally was still maintaining extraordinary composure throughout this entire farcical ordeal.

I think Jake knew— and so did I— that as dramatic and threatening as he was behaving, Edward would never intentionally do anything that would hurt, either physically or emotionally, the two most important people in his life. His wife and his child.

"Mom!" I called out. It wasn't loud, but I knew she would hear it. They always hear everything.

My eyes met Jacob's, I could feel his trepidation. I could feel is apprehension over seeing my mother again after so many years. I felt the bond between us pull and pulse. A part of me felt ill at ease with the relationship they had shared and the flame he'd held for her. But, even by his own admission, his feelings for her weren't the same as the feelings he felt for me. I believed him. I felt it too.

A silent breeze flowed through the little and crowded kitchen. I could hear the out-breath of shock from Embry and Seth as my mother entered the room. I suppose they had only ever know her as human. Father always said she had changed extensively after her transformation.

"Jake," she said, her bell voice ringing through me. The longing and pining was apparent in her tone. Her pull to Jacob had obviously not altered with her transformation.

I watched as his eyes left mine and moved to my mother's. There was a comfort in their gaze. It was a look between old friends that held many secrets. I felt my chest getting tight and the small amount of scrambled eggs still left in my stomach attempted to resurface. Had I underestimated their bond?

I realized with a painful sense of appreciation, that this was what jealousy felt like. I was jealous of my own mother. My eyes closed at my envy and I sucked in a deep breath, trying to dispel the puerile emotion. The scent of Jacob and my family and his pack brothers swirled around my head. Like it or not, we were all now linked together.

When I opened my eyes, Jacob was looking at me once more. Still pinned to the refrigerator with my ridiculously over protective father's hand still tight at his throat, he was looking at me. There was an adoring sparkle to his eyes. His lips parted, softening his eyes even further as I felt a pulse of love and affection course though our bond.

"You can let go of me now Edward," Jake said quietly, his eyes never leaving mine. He reached out a hand, his fingers stretched towards me. My hand came up and linked fingers with his. I sent him no message with my gift, our eyes were expressing enough.

My mother stepped in to my peripheral vision, her hand reaching up and gently laying a hand on my father's arm, the arm that was threatening to choke my mate. "Let him go Edward," she said, "this is not how we treat our friends."

"Can you shield us mother?" I asked, breaking my gaze with Jake to meet mom's. She gave me a small nod and immediately I saw a significant relaxation of the tension my father had held in his body. As often as I felt irritation and resentment at his mind reading, I knew it was involuntarily. He couldn't help hearing the things he heard.

"Mother?" Embry said. I had almost forgotten their presence in all the commotion. "Your imprint is Bella Swan's daughter?"

"Cullen. My name is Cullen now," she responded, her head snapping to look at him over her shoulder before a flicker of an old memory seemed to flash in her golden eyes.

Embry seemed to ignore her correction, still focused on his Alpha. "What kind of fucked-up-ness is this, Jake? How the fuck is that even possible?" he asked. "Bella's only been dead for seven years?"

"Dead?" I asked spinning in the spot, my hand sill gripping Jacob's tight.

"Well she's not alive!" Embry returned, a defensiveness for his friend bubbling up.

"Yes she is!" I seethed, coming to my mother's defense.

"It's all just semantics," my father interrupted. "The girl is coming out," he said, nodding his head to the bathroom down the hall. "Renesmee, I want you to come with us."

"No," Jacob growled, pulling me suddenly into his arms.

By not saying anything or really doing anything when my father seized him by the throat, Jake had called Edward's bluff. However, the idea of a vampire taking his imprint away was too much for the wolf. I could feel the low base of his simmering growl reverberate from his chest through to mine.

The vibration spoke to me on a basic level. My mate was defending me. Protecting me. Threatening the enemy. Preparing to display his strength.

At his show of dominance, the animal with in me responded, as she should. Physically.

I leaned back and pressed myself into Jacob's front, pressing my bottom in to the hardened phallus beneath his pants. I allowed the sound of his growl to vibrate through to my soul and let it settle between my legs. A simple, soft, guttural purr emerged from my throat in reply. It was an unfamiliar sound; one that I'd never heard myself make before.

It shocked both Jacob and me back into the room. We both relaxed the force that we had been using to press against the other. His arms gripped securely and lovingly around my shoulders as he held me gently to his chest. I let myself melt against him once more, this time letting the tensions of the past few minutes dissolve at his touch.

His voice took on a deeper, more gravely timber as he spoke again, as if the wolf within was expressing himself through the man. "You cannot take her from us Cold One. We have only just found her."

"Only to talk," dad clarified his hands up in placation. My father was no fool; he knew not to poke to latent beast. "We haven't seen our daughter for several weeks, we miss her."

"How the hell is she your daughter?" Embry demanded again, still somehow unaware of his Alpha's struggle with the wolf.

I felt Jacobs's arms tremor around me, the wolf receding and the man's attention now directed to his friend. "Emb, it's a long story," Jake answered with a little sight of exasperation.

His hand pressed against the cotton of my dress, splaying his fingers under my ribs as he held me to him. "I'll explain. Just wait a minute okay?" His thumb absently traced the swell of my breast as he spoke with his beta. The innate simplicity of his touch sent a shiver of anticipation over my skin as his heat grazed closer to my hardened nipple.

Daddy gave Jacob another stare that would melt tungsten steal. I clasped Jacobs's hand, shifting it from the edges of my breast and resting him palm firmly on my stomach. The warmth and humming safety of his touch settled through my body even more. I'd decided to kowtow on the public displays of affection for now, but Daddy was just going to have to get use to the open physicality blooming between the wolf and I. God knows, I had endured watching the couples in my family engage in pre and post coitus embraces all of my life. The actual act of coitus was always been kept private from me, nevertheless, my ears had still heard— far too often. Daddy would have to simply have to get used to seeing Jacobs hand on my body.

Seeming to leave his disapproval of Jacob's wondering hands be for the time being, father shifted, taking my mother into his side. His arms wrapped around her as he inhaled the scent of her hair. It always had a mollifying effect on him. I have always thought her hair smelt like strawberries, not that I find the berry palatable, but I too find her sent comforting.

"Jacob," my father began, bringing me from my thoughts. "I suggest you explain the situations to you brothers while Renesmee comes with us. We'll just go up to the San Gabriel mountains. Hunt for an hour or two."

I could sense a spectrum of emotions coming off Jacob. Mistrust and hatred, a sense of placation, and then an amalgam of affection and trust. He was awash with contradictions.

I spun in his arms, looking up. My fingers reached to his jaw, tracing over the defined line of his mandible and lovingly stroking over his cheek.

"It'll be okay Jake. It will only be for an hour, and then I will be back. Explain to them everything we talked about last night," I said, nodding towards his pack waiting on the periphery, "and I'll get my father to understand. I'll meet you back here in an hour."

"It might be two," my father interrupted.

I felt Jake tense as his eyes met my dad's. "An hour and a half. No more," he snarled.

"Listen here Black; these boys might follow you around like you're the boss—"

"Hey!" Seth called, apparently aggrieved at being regarded as a _boy_. By my calculations, he was at least twenty-two and judging by the deeds he and his pack brother got up to with Amber last night, certainly no child.

"But I don't take orders from you," Father continued, ignoring the upset wolf and pointing a threatening finger at my mate.

I could feel the growl bubbling up from Jacobs's chest, the wolf within him once again rising to the challenge.

"Jake don't," I said quietly, a soft palm resting on his chest. I could hear the bathroom door opening; we had run out of time.

"Edward," I started, looking down the hall to my roommate who had thankfully stopped to check her hair in the hallway mirror. "Jake doesn't want me to go at all, and to be honest I don't really want to leave him right now, either. But I will for you, daddy. Because I love you. However, things have to change. Firstly, with this aggression. Jacob has compromised and yet here you are, the one who is still acting like a _boy. _An hour and a half is plenty of time."

"Edward," my mother said quietly, "look at me darling." Her granite hands reached up, cradling my father's cheeks. Instantly, his steely demeanor crumbled in her hands. "Let's go for a drive to the mountains."

"Very well," he smiled, kissing her gently on the forehead. "Let's go Carlie," he said as Amber made her way into the kitchen.

"Whoa," she smiled, her eyes skimming over all the new people in the room, lingering on my father's chiseled good looks. She seemed much taken with my father, mesmerized by his handsomeness with her human eyes.

Looking between my father and I, "this must be your brother," she smiled; everyone always comments that the resemblance is striking.

"The bone structure in this room really is phenomenal!" she commented again, still unaware just how phenomenal all of our _structures_ really were. Then Amber looked invitingly over to the other two 'siblings' in the room, her eyes flashing to my fathers, before back to Seth and Embry once more. "Family reunions all round this morning," she said, winking to both Embry and Seth.

"Bella," my father beseeched through ground teeth. I assume it was a plea for her to extend her shield. At the human's slight flush and increased heart rate, I presume she was recalling her reunion with the wolves… and maybe imagining what it would be like with my father added in also… in high definition.

"Hey Amber. Yeah, this is my overprotective brother Eddie and his girlfriend, Bella. And this is Amber," I said, ignoring her futile attempt to flirt with my father, instead pointing to each person as the introductions went around. "They're just here for the day so we're gunna go out for a bit."

"And my brothers and I are gunna go for a run," Jake added, the tension still apparent in his tone but without the gravely timbre of the wolf. Jacob the man, my mate, my lover, was back in control.

"Oh! Maybe I could come with you guys," Amber chirped in, oblivious to the feuding supernatural beings only a hairsbreadth of restraint away from shredding one another in our little off-campus apartment. "So long as we can walk a little," she added, "you guys wore me out last night."

I could feel the tension building in Jacob again, it pressed on our bond like an abscess waiting to explode its exudate on us all. He needed to run; I could sense it. My wolf needed freedom and the space to stretch his paws. The last thing Jacob needed was to be around a female—who wasn't me, wearing the scent of other wolves—who weren't him. He wasn't going to simply '_walk it off'_ in human form.

Both Embry and Seth must have felt their Alpha's tension also. "Nah, Amy," Embry started.

"It's _Amber._"

Seth clipped his bother on the back of the head, rolling his eyes. "He's a forgetful idiot Amber," Seth interceded, walking over to hold the human. "But he's a _fast,_ forgetful idiot. We all are. Unless you run five miles in close to thirty minutes, you're gunna struggle to keep up honey. My brothers and I have been training for years. And we're competitive. We don't really do the walking thing," he said, nuzzling into the crook of her neck. "But…" his lips grazed over her pulse point in an attempt to placate and distract the female, "we do other things. Things that are best done at a far _slower_ pace, and indoors, and with far less clothing on."

He sucked on Amber's earlobe, paying with it and making the poor girl week at the knees. "We'd be more than happy to do them with you when we get back." Seth was whispering, giving her human ears the illusion of privacy, but to the rest of us, the color change in her cheeks, the change in her scent and the fact that we could all hear Seth as if he were talking through a megaphone, left no doubt to the subject of their conversation.

"Really Seth?" my father started, his disapproval and disgust apparent in his tenor, "what happened to you?"

"He grew up _Eddie," _Jake growled, coming to his pack mate's defense. "Just like Nes… Carlie has." The growl rolling from his belly increased in volume and pitch. I was concerned it was soon going to reach Ambers hearing level.

My arms wrapped around his waist and I pressed my cheek to his chest. "Sssh, it's fine Jake. I'll only be gone for a little while. Then I'll be back." I whispered knowing only the preternatural ears would hear me, "Go be with your pack. Talk to your bothers back home."

I reached up kissing him softly on the lips, silencing the growl and tempering the hard muscles of tension he had built up. It was truly overwhelming how that simple sensual touch could so obviously relax us both.

Jacob lent down, pressing his lips harder into mine; my soft kiss quickly deepened into one of desperation and anguish from Jacob. His hands tangled through my hair, pulling me closer to his lips as my mouth opened to give his tongue access. My tongue wrapped around his, playing and enjoying the velvety feel of his kiss. It was as if our mouths fused as one. His heat, his adoration, and his comfort surrounded me. I found myself lost in the arms of my mate; lost in sea of hot-blooded need.

After a time— minutes or seconds, I wasn't sure— I recalled our location, and our audience; and pulled back from his lips. Panting for breath, we hovered with mouths just grazing the others. With pupils yawning into the depths of our souls, we held on to one another. Neither willing to break apart.

My fingers found the edge of his shirt, winding under to touch the warm brown skin beneath._ I don't want to let you go, even for an hour or two._

"I know. I can feel it," he whispered, his fingers drawing patterns across my back. "But you're going to have to be the one who leaves Ness. There's no way the wolf is going to let me turn away from you. They might be your parents but all he sees and smells are leeches, and even without that, this thing between us is too new for him to leave you."

I nodded my understanding. I was going to have to fight my instincts to walk away from him, too. My hands lifted to his face, memorizing the feel of his skin before running my fingers through the cropped lengths of his hair. We were only going to be apart for short time, but the bond was strong and resistant . It was like trying to pull two carbon atoms apart at an atomic level with sheer force of will. It couldn't be done. My atoms had redistributed to his. A mutual attraction electrically linking us. Covalent.

Our bond was as strong as diamonds.

I was just beginning to realize just how powerful the imprint was for the wolf _and _for the imprint too.

"We'll be back before midday Jake," mom promised. "You have my word."

"Sure, sure Bells. Your _word_," he let out in a breath of sarcasm. I suddenly felt his hurt at their broken friendship. I couldn't feel the heartbreak of a lost love as I'd expected and initially thought. Instead, all I could sense from Jacob was a platonic friendship towards my mother, and a mistrust that was longing to be resolved.

"Wait, you guys all know each other?" Amber asked, still completely oblivious to the tension in the room. Humans really can be very obtuse; the tension rolling of most of us was so thick I could practically taste it.

Jake squeezed me tight, looking at the human tucked underneath Seth's arm. "Our fathers are old friends," he said, an honest answer yet withholding so much more.

"Huh. What are the odds? This day just gets weirder and weirder!" she squealed, jumping as Seth's broad hand wound over her bottom and squeezed it in a full, meaty embrace.

"You're telling me," Embry scoffed, stepping over and pulling Amber into a distracting, goodbye embrace.

"Come on Carlie," mom urged, her gaze blinking to my father who had been conspicuously quiet for some time, "before the weather turns."

It was a cloudy day outside, but it was unlikely to stay that way here in California. However, I knew what she really meant was, "let's go before your father cracks." For a vampire renowned for his amazing self-control, he certainly did not seem that restrained when it came to his daughter and her lover.

"Okay," I whispered, nodding to my parents but with my forehead still pressed against Jacob's hard chest. I tried to sort out the chaos of emotions running through me as I worked up the strength to pull away from him. I was going against every fiber in my being to leave Jacob's side. The carnal animal in me was frenetic. Wild and fighting to stay with her mate. However, the logical person in me was determined to find peace and balance between my lives. My life was now categorized in two: the time before I had met Jacob and any time after our eyes had first met. That was how I now based my existence's timeline. Around the other half of my soul. No, I did not want to leave his side, but for the sake of balance and at the rational uneasiness of him becoming an obsession, I would. But only for an hour and a half.

I leaned against Jacob's solid form, allowing him to hold me up as I let the gravitational pull I felt from him hold me to the earth and give me mass. I let his arms and his sent envelop me. I turned, pressing my ear to his chest and listened to the steady thump of his heart reverberate thought me. I breathed in deeply, letting the completeness of him… of us… center and ground me.

His strong hands held me close, one hand pressed into the middle of my back as the other patted in long, loving strokes over my hair and down my back. It was soothing and supporting.

For seventeen seconds, we simply stood in the middle of my kitchen, my family, and friends looking on as he held me and I listened to the steady lub-dub of his heart. Our hearts were beating as one. Our bodies had aligned, in every conceivable way.

No, I didn't want to leave him. Nevertheless, with a bracing sniffle, I stood, flicking a look over my shoulder to my parents. "At least let me change before we go," I asked, but with my tone demanding and not open to discussion.

Mom nodded, mouthing, "sure,' as daddy stood ridged by her side. I could see he was anxious to go.

_Tough luck_ I thought to myself…I wasn't.

Quite deliberately, I pulled Jacob in for one last kiss and a soul-healing embrace. My hands sought out the bare skin of his forearms as I gazed steadily into his deep, dark, mesmerizing eyes. _As crazy as is seems—and possibly it's nothing more than just the biology or the supernatural influence— but I've fallen in love with you overnight Jake. It feels as real as your flesh and your bones. I can not remember a time in my life where I have been this happy and at peace. I never knew I was missing something until I found you, Jacob. I'll be back soon, I'll see you before the sun reaches its zenith, my love. _I wanted my touch to leave an imprint on his heart the way my presence had on his soul.

He nodded, watching me with a heated, crazed look while sending a pulsing emotion of love and craving into my heart as I stepped out of his arms and turned.

.

* * *

**A bit of an anti-climax, I know. But there's more to come. They needed a moment of calm before the storm that's coming up.**

**Next Chapter should be up this Wednesday.**

**X... M**


	5. Chapter 5

**As promised, the next chapter is here! **

**Thank you all for all the beautiful comments and reviews, they make writing all the more enjoyable and motivating.**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

_Is she stronger than you? _Jarred asked, his imagination showing us all an image of Renesmee picking me up, literally, at last nights kegger and tucking me under her arm like a god damn football.

_No, fucker, she's not stronger than_ _me_, I growled out. The Alpha and the wolf were bristling at even the idea of the man not being the strongest and the most dominant between my mate and I. It was an animistic instinct that the pack all understood, and as Alpha, the urge was strongest in me._ She's strong;_ I agreed,_ but I'm telling you now, I'm stronger. _My mental voice was a deep, gravely growl of power, but to prove it, I showed the pack a little gimps of her bare shoulder as I'd slammed her, repeatedly, up against the cracking blue tiles of Seth's shower earlier this morning.

Then I saw Embry's mind flash as he remember her hand as she'd held her dad's shoulder when he was trying to throttle me. Fucking leach. _She wasn't as strong s him, but she could hold her own._

_Edward fucking Cullen is gunna be your Father in law, _Paul laughed as he lopped thought the forest behind the reservations houses. _You, Jake, are the unluckiest son of a bitch I have ever met_. I sighed, I hadn't heard my brother-in-law's internal voice for a few months, he'd been attempting to stop phasing, wanting to start to grow old with my sister and their children. But the hottest head in the pack was finding it difficult, and at the word of me finally finding my imprint, Rachel had pushed him out the door demanding he phase get all the gossip from the wolves visiting down south. Trust him to find the whole situation funny.

_I don't think he's unlucky_, Seth added, keeping pace with Embry and I now that I'd burnt off most of the aggression and frustration and had reduced to a steady trot._ I think it was always meant to be. I think his wolf knew his imprint would come from Bella, and that's why Jake held on to the pain of her leaving for so long. The wolf knew the imprint would be wherever Bella was._

_._

Brady ignored Seth's fair appraisal of the situation, focusing, again, on one thing. _But you let her drink your blood, dude! _Was he kidding me? We were back to that again? Brady, and a few of the others, just could seem to get around the idea of the wolf allowing it. They just couldn't make sense of it.

The fact that she was Bella and Edwards child; that she was immortal; or half vampire; none of those things had been an issue for very long—not that I would have allowed it to be an issue. I was leader, and my pack would accept my chosen mate—regardless of her heritage. I considered myself a fair Alpha, I don't like forcing the wolves to do what I want. I rarely pushed my hand by taking their free will away with an Alpha order.

Yeah, I might appreciate and ask their opinions sometimes, but make no mistake… this was no democracy. They were going to accept Ness as my mate. But, thankfully, it hadn't been an issue, I hadn't needed to go Alpha on their asses. The pack saw her as I did. They saw her as mate. They accepted her as my imprint.

But the blood thing, the fact that she'd bitten me and drunk… well, they kept getting hung up on that. They didn't understand how good it had felt. And how right.

Over the years I'd practiced hard and developed a very tight lock on my thoughts and memories. The pack only saw what I wanted them to see. And, I didn't want them seeing anything of Ness as she'd laid naked beneath me.

_For fuck'sake Brady, _Colin thought, _there's obviously more to it, he's just not gunna show you his imprint naked or whatever. _My cousin was a smart man.

_But still, _Brady pressed on, the young wolf was unable to repress a tremor of repulsion at the thought of his alpha allowing a blood sucker to…well… to suck his blood.

My wolf let out a ground tremoring snarl in response.

My booming alpha voice silenced all other thoughts. _Look, I marked her and she marked me. We bit each other. _

Then finally, in frustration at their revolving fascination with the blood drinking, I let them feel the memory of the marking. I let the pack feel that first time that all became right in my world, that first release that marked the imprint as the wolf's. That first time that Ness had drunk from my lifeblood.

I let the wolves feel just how extraordinarily _good_ it felt. No visuals, but I let them experience the best damned orgasm of my life. A highlight reel of the emotions arising from he best damned fuck of my existence.

.

There was an all-round holler of lustful groans and moans. All of them collectively being bowled over at the raw and intense emotion I'd let them feel.

_Holy fucking shit! You've got to bottle that stuff Jake. Seriously, that had to be a load for the record books._

_Shut up Quil._

_But I bet it was the biggest load you've ever had!_

_Quil, you really are a dick, _Embry said.

_Not as big as Jake's though_.

On many an occasion I'd thanked the gods that Quil had imprinted on a child, he needed the extra fifteen years to grow the hell up.

Having had enough of twenty questions from the lupine squad I asked,_ Can anyone see a clock?_ Surely it had been over an hour since Nessie left. The ache in my chest had been a persistent nag only minutes after she'd left. It had been increasing the further apart we seemed to get.

_Hang on,_ Paul said, looking from the edge of the tree line of his yard into the clock in their kitchen, _It's just after eleven._

It wasn't even a half hour that she'd been gone, but both the wolf and me wanted to be waiting for Ness when she got back to the apartment.

"Paul, is Jake still phased?" Through Paul's eyes I could see my sister approaching across their back lawn. I could feel my brother-in-law's mind pulse with happiness and contentment as they met at the tree line. Her hands combed through his grey fur as he snuffled at the scent of the cub growing in her tummy. Their warmth only served to remind me of the ache I was feeling from being away from _my_ imprint.

Rachel's face was suddenly front and center in Paul's mind. "Jake… wait, can he even hear me?" she asked her mate. I could sense his nod and his snickering affection at her methods of communication. "I want you to bring this girl home. Let her hear all the stories from dad. Let her be a part of the pack. I want to meet my new sister. You got it?"

_Sure sis,_ I answered.

Prior to me calling this cross-continental pack meeting, the imprints had only known that they had a new addition to the fold. None of them would have guessed my mate's linage and… species.

"Paul the second you're done I want you home and giving me the run down to the newest member of the pack."

_You had better go put her out of her misery Paul. I know how demanding she can be, _I said_._

And with nothing but a conceptual nod, the image of my sister, and the mental watermark of Paul Lahote was gone.

.

_I want to head back to the apartment, _I said to the two wolves at my flanks. _The rest of you can phase out if you want to. We'll talk again tomorrow._

There were several mental nods, a few repeated offers of congratulations, a few more recollections of that first, branding orgasm I'd let them feel— followed by a warning growl from me, and soon, with a lulling quietness, only the two minds of the wolves who were physically near me could be heard.

Seth had driven us a few miles north-west to a large reserve he'd been using to let off steam as a wolf. We'd already turned around and had been following a creek back towards the area we'd parked the Chevy for several minutes.

We were getting closer to the truck when the insistent ache I'd been feeling sharply increased to a jagged pain. It burned and stung. My chest felt like it was being torn apart from within. Mid-stride, I found myself back in my skin and skidding along the rough yellow grit as I doubled over on the ground. The contents of my stomach was coming up in a sticky, heated mess. Then the pain worsened still, as if cutters were hacking at the very cables that held me to the earth, the bond that tied me to my imprint.

"Ness," I choked as more bile spewed out.

.

* * *

"Sooo," mom said, turning around in her seat and finally breaking the awkward silence that had been the cabin of dad's S60 R for the past twenty-seven minutes.

We were headed north on the Interstate 5. Daddy, as usual, was weaving his way in and out of the Sunday morning traffic, completely disregarding the road rules or speed signs.

I was still feeling irritated towards my father. His rude interruption to my perfect morning left a sour taste in my mouth and my mouth had been missing Jacob's since we had left the apartment. Even with the benefit of my mother's mind shield, my father was under no illusion of how I was feeling towards him. Peeved. So irritated, in fact, that it was causing a heated burning in the center of my chest. The further we drove towards the San Gabriel Mountains, the worse the aching scorch became.

I rubbed the center of my chest and pressed the button that lowered the darkly tinted window to see if breathing in some fresh air would help alleviate the nagging ache. It did not, however it did inadvertently let in some of the sunshine that was poking out of the cloud cover. The sun did, at least, distract me briefly from the pain. I recalled how Jacob had enjoyed the sight—and feel— of my glowing skin in this morning's dawning sunlight.

With the warmth of the muted light and the wind gusting my hair from my face, I finally turned to look at my mother. Her golden eyes searched over mine, her smooth, internally youthful skin barely crinkled as a smile glanced on her lips and a subtle joy settled in her eyes.

She knew I was irritated with my father. She knew exactly what he was like and she loved him even more for it. I think she could see something similar in my eyes too. The look of unconditional love. That was what I had discovered with Jacob Black, less than twenty-four hours earlier.

As much as I was sure the release of a good run and possibly a hunt with my parents would settle my mood somewhat, it still felt very wrong to be traveling in the opposite direction of my mate; the other half of me.

"Tell me how he found you?" Mom asked, a cheeky smirk fighting its way to the surface.

My father interrupted with a childish whine to his tone,"He's probably been searching for a way to get back at us all these years and was waiting for her to be unprotected before he pounced." He was really being quite juvenile about this whole situation.

That was when it struck me. He was a juvenile. My father may be over a century old, but he had been frozen in time as an adolescent. He would never emotionally develop beyond that of a somewhat mature seventeen year old.

"Oh Edward, be reasonable," my mother chided gently, a loving hand on his arm. "If Jacob has truly imprinted on Renesmee then there is no way he could have planned it."

"What do you mean 'has truly imprinted?'" I asked, feeling the rising irritation once more. "There's no doubt mom. I felt it."

"I'm sure you think you did," daddy answered for them both. That frustrating and condescending tendency was—as always— lacing his tone. It was that same tone that had started the acrimony between my father and I. His condescension had been one of the catalyzing factors that saw me running off to the Californian hills for some collage freedom. "You're so young sweetheart," he continued, unaware of my growing irritation, "you can't possible understand and decipher through all the emotions you've been developing."

"You're kidding me right?" I said, my voice raising in indignation. "Father, I remember knowing I was hurting mother in utero, and I had the maturity to _decipher_ that emotion of remorse and attempt to prevent causing any more pain as a NEONATE!" I said, I was barely controlling my hostility as I ground my back molars together.

One hand was digging in to the cool leather seat beneath me, the other was pressing a balled-up fist into the ever-increasing, burning pain in my chest. "Are you suggesting that I am too immature to comprehend love, either platonic or romantic? Or even that I can't possibly understand and accept the reaction of my own body if I experience lust or sexual attraction?" My feeling towards Jacob were so much more that purely physical, but I couldn't help but antagonize my father. I was being as juvenile as he was. It was a curious revelation.

"Yes. If Jacob Black is involved," he snapped back. "I never trusted him with your mother and I'm not about to trust him with my daughter!"

"Augh!" I screeched, my voice echoing out the open window.

I threw myself back against the seat like a petulant child and stared out the front as we sped down the freeway. Petulant child. Again, my revelations hit me like a ton of bricks. My father… the perpetual child. Trapped at seventeen. A stupid seventeen year old jealous boy projecting his jealousy of a flame snuffed out long ago onto Jacob and myself and the bond we had found in one another.

.

I knew there was often no point arguing with my father, especially if he had very strong views on a topic; especially with my new revelation swimming through my mind. Realizing his motivations— even if he didn't realize them himself— cooled my anger at daddy's earlier rash behavior.

I attempted to smother the enflaming ache in my chest and along with it, the growing feeling of smug superiority from of my mind. I may have had the opportunity to outgrow my father emotionally—after today's events I had developed a strong suspicion that I already had —but no matter the emotional development, he would always be my daddy. And a part of me would always respect that and hold it dear, but I was still irritated at his behavior. And to be quite frank, he'd embarrassed me. Charging in like he could control who I did or did not have relations with. It had all been in vain anyway. I was no longer daddies to control.

My heart and soul belonged to Jacob. I was his.

I looked out the window, the long dashed white lines flicked by on the road outside, the ache in my chest flared and scalded as I thought of him.

In just the course of one night, the alpha wolf from my families past had become my night, my day, and my life.

I settled in to the leather bench seat of my father's car, now warmed by my body heat. The heat reminded me of Jacobs's warmth and his passion. I missed his heat. I missed his touch. I missed his kiss. I missed him.

As I watched us speed past the trucks and other vehicles and through the bland nothingness of the cut out hills of Santa Clarita, all I wanted was to do was let this farce of a _hunt _be done and head back to West Wood where Jacob would be waiting for me.

.

After a few minutes of pacifying silence, mother turned back around to face me; she reached her hand back and rested it lightly on my knee. "Come on Renesmee," mom soothed, "You still didn't let me know how he found you. How did you meet?"

It was really quite shocking how, at merely the mention of Jacob, my mood quieted further and I felt my spirits lifted. My hand came down onto my mother's as I made skin contact.

It was often easier to simply replay a scene than it was to try to explain all the details. But more so, I didn't want to give my father the honor of knowing my feelings. I knew mother would tell him later, but as immature as I was, I was still too angry with him to let him have that privilege right now.

I showed mom the fraternity party. The slight inebriation and loss of inhibition I'd developed after the alcohol consumption. Then… with a push of emotion to give the scene significance, I showed my mother the sight of the dark, handsome man falling to his knees at my feet. The moment we had been irrevocably entwined as one. There was no denying the overwhelming feeling of completeness I'd felt as our eyes had met.

_I can feel him mommy,_ I said mentally, rubbing once more the middle of my chest to illustrate. _There is no trick or revenge here. From what I've learned, Jacob had not been well or even 'whole', for that matter, since you and the family left Forks. But I think he is whole now, mother. I know that I am. I didn't even realize I was missing something. But it's undeniable. I am his mate. And I need you to make father see reason. I need for you both to give me, to give _us_, the respect to make our own choices and to know our own hearts._

"I just want for you to be happy, Rene," she said with a smile that lit her golden eyes. My mother had always understood my need for independence and had developed as a mediator between my father and I over the past year or so.

"I am, mom. Or at least I was, until daddy stormed in and threatened to rip his larynx out that is," I said aloud for my father's benefit.

He simply pretended to ignore our conversation and continued to head down the interstate, swinging left towards the Sacramento exit. I felt the pull at my heart once more, stretching, and tearing. The unconscious task of breathing was all of a sudden more difficult that it had ever been. It felt like my heart was dissecting. Was it possible for human-vampire hybrids to suffer from aortic aneurisms? If so, I think it was dissecting.

.

"Where are we going dad?" I asked. My instincts were suddenly screaming at me. This was not the direction of the mountains and it was categorically not the direction of my apartment or of Jacob. My body was telling me that.

"We're going home Renesmee," he said, his tone quiet and resolute. "Put a little distance between you, so you can think straight."

"I don't want to go home," 'I said, the bubble of anxiety rising from within. My father and I have had many confrontations, especially this past eighteen months or so, but never had he forced me to do something against my will.

My parents were kidnapping me. Or at least my father was.

My mother turned to the front as I inquired about our direction. "Edward?" she asked.

"It's for her own good, love."

"But it's not what she wants. What you think is best, isn't always the case. Trust that she knows her own self." She placed a cautious hand on his shoulder, "Edward, we've been down this road before. And it nearly ended us all," she warned.

"But the wolf has claimed her like she's property Bella; you should have heard its thoughts."

"And you're not treating her like property right now?" Even through the haze of anxiety swirling through my mind, I could hear my mother's calm and sure tone. She could always get my father to see reason.

"He can't take my daughter form me Bella, he can't," his desperation was obvious as he shifted and griped my mother's hand tight. It was too late. I was already Jacob's.

Jacob.

.

I could feel the ache in my heart brand its way through my chest as we sped down the road. The mild ebb of nausea was now surging up to an acute, seizing biliousness. The taste of this morning's eggs were at the back of my throat like a bubbling pit of sulphurized mud.

"Please pull over," I whispered. The saliva in my mouth was pooling as I fought the nausea. The pain in my chest was now sharp and tearing, like my heart itself was being cut from my thorax.

If my parents heard my plea, they ignored me, too wrapped up in their heartfelt conversation. "He's not going to take her from us Edward, but this behavior of yours will most certainly push her away. This is _Jacob_. The boy I _didn't_ chose. Don't you think we've taken enough from him already?"

"Stop the car!" I called out, a moan of pain escaping as I doubled over, my arms held tight to my chest. It was agonizing.

Finally realizing my situation, we pulled over to the side of the road. Mother exited and opened my door at super human speed just as I leant out and vomited up the partially digested eggs.

Daddy helped me out the car and I knelt on the dry, rocky shoulder of the interstate. On all fours, my stomach heaved as I cried in real pain for the first time I my life. My heart was being torn from my body.

"Renesmee," my father cried, "what's wrong?" Even though my inferno of agony, the panic was apparent in his voice.

I heaved once more, spitting aimlessly as another wave of torture surrounded my heart.

"Jake. I need Jake."

* * *

**So that happened; they had a physical reaction to being apart.**

**Let me know your thoughts. **

**MarinaNamaste.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi everyone, thanks for sticking with me and this story. I think I wrote back to everyone last week, all except those who were guest and those without PM enabled. So I want to say thank you for your comments too.**

**I have just realized that I've made a massive oversight in this story. I haven't acknowledged my friend and Beta, Atretee in any of my authors notes. THANK YOU. Thank you so, soooo, much Les for all the editing and advice to give to my work. You know how appreciative I am, I'm just a dork who forgets to say it in print ;-)**

**To the rest of you, thanks for reading, I hope you like what's coming up. This is a longer chapter, it's good and meaty.**

**Marina**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

In the thinly wooded forest of Rivas Canyon Park, I came-to with my two pack brother's hauling me back toward Seth's car. Through the bitter retching and agonizing pain in my chest, I vaguely realized that Embry was bent over my naked ass, pulling and tugging on my legs. They were trying to get the shorts that I'd had tied around my ankle up and over my legs.

"Come on dude, lift your ass up," Embry grunted, pulling at my hips as I once again, tried to hurl out the lining of my stomach.

Rolling on to my side, I pushed up, turning onto all fours, "Emb, it's okay," I croaked, waving his hand off as I pulled my own god damned pants up.

"Welcome back boss," Seth said as his hand reached out in offering. "We don't know what the fuck's going on, you've been spewing and moaning like a delirious zombie for the past ten minutes." I used his help to get myself to my feet. "It's only another mile to my truck," he added, as I wiped the yellow dust off my hands. "You think you can do it, Jake?"

I nodded absently, my mind only on one thing, one person. The pain hit again, another wave that sent me hunching over and clutching at the burning agony inside me. I pushed through the pain, determined to focus on my task. I was a protector, the _chief_ protector in a pack of honored warriors and I had failed to protect her, my most prized possession. I was gunna change that, starting from now. I took an unsteady step forwards, towards my way back to her. "Ness, I got to get to Ness," I choked, fighting the searing pain in my chest.

"We know dude," Embry soothed as he dipped under my arm, letting me use his shoulder as a crutch. "That's all you've said for the last ten minutes. We'll get to the truck then head straight up to the San Gabriel's. We'll find her Jake, we promise."

Several minutes later, with me pausing every minute or so to either dry retch or to instead double over in pain, or sometimes both, we arrived at the quiet gravel car-park. There were only three other cars parked in the lot and not a soul around to witness my impotence as I took the water bottle Seth had offered me, swirling a mouthful around and then heaved it back up all over the ground before I could even attempt to swallow it.

I spat out the bitter bile, my thoughts were still obsessed with getting to my imprint. Then, as if thinking of her triggered Ness to think of me, I felt a warm pulse in my chest. It was faint and less potent than any of the other connections to Renesmee I'd felt in the past. She was thinking of me and she was hurting too. Realizing that she was hurting too made it all increase by a hundred, physically and emotionally. I couldn't help the moan that escaped my lips as I doubled over once more as bitter, yellow bile filled my mouth.

"Jake, I love ya man, and we're gunna help you," Seth said, clasping a supporting hand on my shoulder, "but there is no fucking way you're coming in the car with all this spewing going on."

"Fine," I wheezed, the wolf in me too forlorn at the receding imprint bond to care about the status of where the human sat… or lay.

.

With my brother's help, I pulled myself up and into the back of Seth's truck. We headed south down the Pacific Coast highway and I, once again, started retching, my stomach convulsing while my insides burned.

As we followed the coast line down, I could feel what was left of the cables that were tying me to her starting to pull and strain further. It was getting worse. The ties binding me to Ness were tearing the flesh from my body with the strain.

We were being pulled further apart.

Lifting my fist up, I hammered at the rear window, screaming to the wolves inside, "we're going the wrong way. She's north, Seth, drive north."

Embry turned in his seat, his brows bumped together in worry as he meet my eye through the laminated glass. "We will Jake, it's just faster on the freeway. We'll be heading to her in just a few minutes. Hang in there Dude. We were there for you when you were running from your betrayer, we're sure as hell gunna be there for you when you're running _to_ your redeemer."

My redeemer. Embry always had such a way with words, I thought as the pain seared through my chest. He'd looked into some kind of literary course in community college a few years back, but it had never panned out. As alpha, and his friend, I should have pushed him further. He was right thought, she was my redeemer, my savior, my one and only reason for everything. And I had to be near her.

I felt our bond, although pulled tight and within a micron of snapping, pulsing and warm. It pulsed again, jerking at the cables, filling my heart with tenderness and love and my chest with agonizing pain. The love gave me enough strength to not cry out in the torture of it all.

Giving in to the exhaustion of the pain, I sunk down, the skin of my back burning as it touched the heated aluminum. It was nothing though, compared to the pain in my chest. I lay diagonally across the bed of the truck, looking up at the clouds that were still obscuring the sun. It reminded me of how beautiful she looked this morning as the dawn broke through the window. The pain was now constant, only fluctuating in its severity. I hoped, with every fiber of my being that my mate wasn't going through this same agony from our separation.

The thought of her smile and her kiss helped keep me from going crazy but the ongoing pain was wearing at me. I knew my brothers would help me find her. They'd know instinctively what I needed as I I'd called out her name and I doubled over from the spirits' sucker punch to my soul. I needed to get to Ness. I just had to endure the torture until we did.

Almost like a protective mechanism to the torture I was experiencing, I decided to let my eyes become unfocused and my mind disengage from it all. I detached from the pain, from the missing piece of my heart, from the world around me. I let the steady hum of the reconditioned engine sooth me. My head knocked back into the tray beneath me, and I stared up at the grey filled sky above. The regular stripes of the overhead wires passing as we traveled were like a hypnotic flash. I let myself remember the softness of her whispered voice in my ear, it numbed me and lulled the beast howling from within.

.

After hours or minutes— I couldn't tell— I was brought back to the truck. The humid wind buffeted over the side, cooling my heated skin. There was a short lived darkness as we drove under an underpass and it woke me from my self-induced stupor. It was like waking up from the most fucked up night's sleep I'd ever had. I rolled on my side, pressing my hand to my still throbbing chest as we rounded a long bend, the ache ebbing just a little bit as the road turned towards the north. Towards my Nessie.

We drove for another half an hour. I was finding that for each mile closer to the mountains we traveled, the more the ache began to ease. It was still burning and still a pain that was impossible to ignore, but the retching had simmered down to a green nausea for now.

At some point, as we merged onto the interstate 5, I'd found the strength to sit up and watched the road from the back of the truck. My wolf started to get impatient, he wanted to escape my skin and find his mate on his own terms. With a tremor and whole lot of will power I pushed the old boy back down. As we traveled along the road, I felt the insipid grey of the concrete barriers were fencing me in. There was nothing but the grey of the faded asphalt, the grey of the cement fences and sound barriers and the grey skies above. The scenery seemed to paint my mood as nothing but concrete slabs flicked past.

We left the more built up part of LA and the sun found its way out of the morning's cloud cover, it spread a bleached piercing light over everything. All the spindly palms and green shrubs lining the highway now seemed muted and washed out by the dry Californian heat. It made me miss the deep, luscious greens of home. As much as I complained, I missed the rain and the green. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to take my mate home... if we could find her.

I had no idea what was happening to me to have caused this reaction. I knew it was centered around my imprint. And it was something to do with us being apart. But the other imprinted wolves had never had this problem as far as I could remember. Emily had gone to visit her family on more than one occasion. Sure, Sam had been a brooding asshole the whole time she'd been gone, but he'd never vomited uncontrollably, and it had never hurt like this was hurting.

But Emily and Sam hadn't been separated less than twenty-four hours after first imprinting. Once she'd accepted him and his wolf, they'd shacked up and hid out for days. And shit, Paul and Rachel were even worse. They'd only surfaced for food and water. It had been totally fucked having to listen in through the thin shitty walls of dad's house. They only reason they even left the house was because the council—aka _dad_— made them, and that wasn't for at least a week after they'd imprinted.

Renesmee and I had only had one night. My imprint wasn't like the others and none of the other wolves were the true alpha either. There was no god damn manual for this supernatural shit. Sometimes I wish I could talk to Ta'ha Aki and the third wife. The last known imprinted alpha pair might have been about to tell me a little more than the legends did. But then again, our stories didn't tell us much about the third wife, but I'm pretty sure my ancestor's imprint wasn't a vampire hybrid. May be that was what had made our separation so much worse.

It was really all just poorly educated guesses though. I was pretty sure, however, that Edward had something to do with it, one way or the other. My gut instinct told me all this mess and pain had something to do with her family. With the leeches. I'd bet my left nut on it. The sparkly ass fucker always had a way of fucking up my life.

With a little pulse in my chest, followed by a warm and only slightly painful burn, I focused my attention back to the road again. Back to finding my mate. From my ousted position in the back, I watched the little orange digital clock on the dash as the minutes ticked over and the speedometer as it sat at a healthy eighty-five mph. Just fast enough that the wolf inside me wouldn't complain but still pushing the maximum limits of the piece of shit, green, 1989 Silverado.

.

As the miles rolled on, I could feel, more and more, the easing of the pain in my chest. It was really now just a dull ache, a pulling sensation. It was pulling me closer to her. As the ache got duller, the longing to be at Renesmee's side started to grow, exponentially. I felt an overwhelming compulsion to get to her. The compulsion surrounded me. My wolf had sprung to attention and was clawing his way to the surface too.

We must have been getting closer.

Seth switched lanes, headed towards the right, towards the Palmdale exit when I'd felt the sudden and strong pull at my chest, pulling me to the left. Not towards to mountains, as Edward and Bella had promised, but Left; north, to whatever unsuspecting Podunk town the leeches had turned their farcically human life towards.

I yelled at my brothers thought the rear window. My voice was loud and low; just shy of the bass timbre of an alpha order. "Sacramento, Seth! Take the Sacramento exit."

They both look at me over their shoulders, their eyes narrowed with brows pulled together in confusion, but they knew better than to question my sudden direction. "The fuckers lied to us," I sneered, punching in frustration, and denting the silver metal I was kneeling on.

With a sharp swerve and a few jolting bumps, the truck mounted the small road divider to keep us traveling on the 5, heading towards Sacramento. I knew we were on the right track as the cables tying me to my imprint were steady hauling me in to her by the yard and the wolf pushing his way to the surface. I knew, instinctively, that Ness had had no part in the misdirection. I could feel her pain and her love pulsing through me. She was angry at her captors too.

I felt myself start to tremor, the internal rage of a phase simmering to the surface. He had no right to take my mate from me. The fucker had crossed me for the last time; _she'd_ betrayed me for the last time too.

Neither the beast, nor the man was going to tolerate it.

With the truck now pushing eighty-eight mph, I could sense her closeness. The wolf was pulling at his tether. I stood up, looking over the top of the cab, straining my eyes to find her. Letting my vision follow my heart's sensibilities.

Then suddenly up ahead, pulled up on a dirt alcove, was a silver fucking Volvo. Predictable fucker. I could smell the sickly, bleached scent of the blood suckers, it was tainting the sent that was etched on my brain. Ness.

There was a sparkle that caught my eye half way up the top of a mountain, off to the side of the road. And then I saw her. In a pair of jeans and a plain grey, fitted t-shirt, her hair a wild mess bunched over one shoulder as she stooped over on hands and knees, the two sparking dead asses fussing around her uselessly.

The wolf broke free of his tether then, letting me keep in my human skin, instead I leaped from the speeding truck and sprinted, at superhuman speed, up the hill side.

.

"Jake," Seth called out the car window as he pulled up next to the parasite's car.

Bella turned as I approached, "Jake," she started, her hands fanned out in a placating gesture.

"Save your bullshit Bella," I sneered, pushing through them both and wrapping my arms around Renesmee.

.

* * *

Without much warning at all, the scrambled eggs that had been threatening for the past several minutes violently exited, as a pain like I'd never felt before seized me by the chest.

Mother had gently pulled my hair into a makeshift cluster behind my neck as daddy lifted me up off all fours and carried me over to the shade of a nearby tree. Even in pain induced delirium I couldn't help the snide comment escaping my thoughts, _we wouldn't want to cause a truck crash by blinding the interstate drivers with vampire sparkle would we, daddy_.

Another wave of searing hot pain pulled at my heart and I rolled on to my side. My face pressed into the undergrowth, my own moans competing with the crinkly snaps of the dried, curled leaves under my cheeks.

"Renesmee, sweetie," my mother's frantic voice broke thought the haze of pain, "what's wrong?" Turning to my father she asked, "Oh, God. Edward, what's wrong with her?"

"Jake, I need Jake," I wheezed out.

I had no idea what was happening to my body but I knew, in the very deepest depths of my heart, that Jacob was my cure. I'd been feeling sick and mildly pained since the moment we drove away from the apartment. But the moment I realized that dad had no plans of allowing me to return, the pain had expediently worsened. It wasn't a dissecting aortic aneurysm, but I could have sworn I was enduring a thoracotomy whilst still conscious.

.

Daddy stood from his worried position over me, the speed of his movement causing the dried leaves to rustle and blow around my face as it rested to the cool earth. "What has that mongrel done to her?" He paced pack and forth, the leaves gusting a small track in his wake.

"What has _he _done?" Mom hissed, looking back to my father, her body statue still as she remained protectively guarding over me. "What have _you_ done Edward?" Her normally bell like voice was shrill and painful to my partially human ears.

My ears hurt, my heart hurt, everything hurt.

My chest was throbbing; it felt, raw and bloodied, like my soul was being shredded into broken-hearted pieces. I needed him in that moment more than I needed the air I was breathing.

My mother stood up into a protective stoop over my sprawled body, her fists bawled at her side, "She was fine until she realized you'd lied about taking her back. You lied to Jake, to her, to _me_, Edward. How could you let me promise, knowing full well you were never going to take her back to LA?"

He shook his head, looking up to the branches of the tree above me, "Even after all these years, Bella, he still has a piece of you. I knew you'd want to go back, at the very least to see him again," he spat.

She glared at him, a hiss escaping between her perfectly white teeth. "He's like family Edward. And he always will be. I discarded him, along with my own parents, when I chose to live my life with you. _For_ you. I have never, not for one minute, doubted your love. It cuts me to the core to think that you doubt mine."

She stood to her full but still shorter height, a pointed finger pressed to her husband's chest. Her tone was cold and controlled. My mother may have only found her new life recently—in terms of a vampire's existence—but she had a natural control of herself. I liked to see her rise to her full potential, without fathers repressing shadow. "I promised my oldest friend that we would return our daughter, not because I want to see him again, which, for the record, I do, but because she is his imprint. I don't have to be inside their minds to know how their connection works."

He blew an unnecessary breath out of the back of his clenched teeth, leaning in to her accusing finger, her nail cut a small incision in the oxford he was wearing. "No Bella, I didn't need to hear it, I could smell their _connection_ from outside the apartment block."

"Don't be vulgar Edward, it's not becoming," she sneered.

He glared at her, a coolness I'd never seen in my father's eyes, and most certainly never directed towards my mother. He angled to the side, balancing his weight on one foot as mother tilted back to block his subtle moves towards me. "You're not taking her anywhere Edward," she said shaking her head slowly. She reminded me of a clown at an amusement fair, only there was no smile, her lips were tight and her eyes were narrowed, waiting to obstruct his elusive rush.

.

After a few moments of aloof dancing back and forth father stood tall, blinking and regarding his wife with something akin to tolerance.

"Love, be reasonable," he said, tilting his head to the side, his cool white hand reaching out to her in offering, "we can't stay out here indefinitely, she obviously needs medical attention. Let's take her back to Alberta, to Carlisle."

"No Edward. No," she said, her hands crisscrossing in front of her in a sharp, air-cracking movement. "Stop trying to manipulate the situation. She doesn't need a doctor she needs her mate. Are you that myopically focused that you can't see the obvious?"

Mother's stance softened over me, but it still didn't relax. She let out a breath, the flash gush of air whistling though her teeth. "I'm sick of it Edward, I love you, but I'm sick of it. Stop trying to manipulate me. Stop lying. Stop thinking that you always know what's best. You don't always know what's best." Her arms waved in earnest as she spoke, years of pent up subservience unleashing as steadily as she could. "It's actually okay to make mistakes. It good for her, for all of us to make a mistake now and then. Not that our daughter finding a mate is a mistake… it isn't. It might be a little sooner than any of us preempted, but it's not a mistake. He'd be good to her Edward."

"I don't care if he worships her or he's just using her. The dog is never going to put his filthy paws on her again. I'll make her see reason. Anyone but him."

Father was wrong, it was only him, it was only ever him and it would only ever be him. His paws were clean and large and talented, he'd never stopped touching, even miles apart Jacob's soul was wrapped around my heart, and it was pulling and squeezing it. We couldn't be separated—not emotionally.

Silently I pressed my fist into my chest, hoping it would fill the gaping hole that felt like it was there. It hurt that he thought Jacob could be using me, either to get back and mother, or to get closer to mother, or just for all the amazing sex we shared last night. But I didn't believe it. Not really. I knew, soul deep, that his feelings for me were sincere. I'd felt it. I'd felt him. I was feeling him still. This pain and love… it couldn't be faked.

Mother let out an irritated sigh, "Don't you get it? It doesn't matter what you do, or what you say, they'll find each other again. She'll search for him and then we'll truly lose her or worse, he'll find her… and then he'll kill you." The wind blew through the trees at that moment, cooling my skin and sending an ominous chill over me.

"Do you really think the dog could kill me? You always did put too much credence on the wolves. Too much faith in _him_." He paused, looking at my mother, his wife, a burning hurt in his eyes. "How did it feel Isabella, to look into Jacob Black's eyes again? Did you feel it? Did the love come rushing back in to your cold body?" My chest ached anew, but I'm sure it would have hurt without the imprint bond pulling at my insides. I didn't want to know the answer to daddy's jealousy driven question, but I was desperate to find out too. My mother and my mate had loved each other for a time, prior to my birth, prior to her transformation. Had she still loved my Jacob as she had changed? He promised me that he now had no such feelings for her, and I was inclined to believe him, but I didn't know about my mother's affections. Had that part of her, that part that had loved her childhood friend as _more than a friend_ endured and become set in stone as her body had cooled and hardened?

"No!" mom yelled, stepping closer to father, her face only inches from his.

I'd never heard my parents speak a cross word to the other. It bothered me that it was the reintroduction of Jacob in their lives that had caused it.

"Edward, I can't believe you're jealous still. After all these years, and all the things we've shared. God! When will you listen?!" She grimaced in exasperation, her fingers raking though her hair coarsely. I suddenly realized that this topic may have been one that they had discussed before… many times before. "I love _you_, Edward. Not Jacob. When I entered that kitchen today, I saw the eyes of my oldest friend, and nothing else." Her head shook in a single move, her brow was furrowed and her eyes closed.

Then she looked over her shoulder at me, down to where I was lying laterally on the soil, my arms and legs bunched up to my chest. Our eyes meet in a silent conversation between mother and child. My mother. The woman who had gave up her life for me…literally. She would go to the ends of the Earth, and back again for me. I understood then, as her golden eyes looked into mine, that my reservations about her friendship with Jacob were unfounded. My mother loved my father… and she always had my back.

She turned back to dad, she had a calmer lift to her brow now. "When I looked at Jacob today after all these years, I saw him as my daughters mate. I saw the way he looked at her."

She licked her lips, her shoulders rising and falling in a discontented puff, "it's the same way you look at me, Edward. Like I'm the only other person in a room. _You_ are the only one I see too. When are you going to believe me? Trust in me; my words _and_ my actions."

She lifted her hand, the large oval diamond encrusted ring caught the light filtering through the tree canopy as she rested her palm gently on his chest— above the very place his heart had once beat. "Stop this," she pleaded, "before it spirals out of control."

He was silent, his hand came up to hold hers to his chest as they locked eyes.

.

I closed mine.

The image of Jacob and his dark, chocolate eyes smiling into mine filled my mind, it filled my senses, my very being. I needed him.

I once again felt the bond between us pull tighter; it stretched and ripped at my proverbial insides. The pain peaked in it's torture, raw and bloodied, I felt like my insides were on fire. I screamed out, my voice piercing through my parent's argument.

Both were back at my side in an instant, their disagreement and nascent—but not where yet absolute—reconciliation was temporally forgotten.

The pain was nothing like I'd ever experienced before. My vision was blurred from the tears my body was secreting.

Mom crouched back over me, her worried, cool palm sliding over my forehead as I whimpered against the insistent agony.

"I'm calling Carlisle," dad said as he stepped closer to me, ignoring my mother's quiet hiss towards him.

With his phone to his ear, he bent down to me, a cool, slender finger lifting a stray curl from my eye. He bent down further, pressing a desperate kiss into the crown of my hair, "I'll fix this is for you _uccellino; _my little bird."

Then he looked up at mother, his eyes soft and repentant. They were the eyes of a man burning alive and begging his mate to soothe the licks of those torching flames. I understood his pain, it had been blistering at my soul for what felt like an eternity.

"Bella love," he whispered, his fingers gently grasping the tips of hers that were hanging tight by her side. "I have only ever acted in what I though was in her best interest. Forgive my irrational possessiveness. I have never doubted your love. I have never taken for granted everything you gave up to be with me."

She looked up into his eyes, her posture and stance softening. Their gaze appeared to be something straight from a scene of one of those over acted, and over played romance movies that Aunt Rose loves so dearly. Their hands lifted and their fingers entwining mid-air over my fallen shoulders. If I'd had the strength to reveal the petulance of rolling my eyes, I would have. I was jealous, I wanted Jacob to look at me like that. He did. But I wanted him here with me in that moment. I needed him. My chest ached for him. I felt empty.

My parents moment was broken as grandfather answered the phone, the trill ring of my father's cell like a starters gun for me to once again vomit, what was left of this morning's eggs were soon covering the dried leaves on the ground below me.

"Carlisle," daddy clipped, instantly rising to his feet and once again pacing along his leaf-blown track as mom held my hair back off the dirty mess. Even as I listened from my broken position on the ground, through the chocking sounds of retching, I could hear dad's worried tone.

.

A minute passed as I listen to my father and his creator debate on the possible causes of my sudden and debilitating illness, and on the best course of action to take. Grandfather would make a suggestion and dad would counter with mom adding her thoughts on occasion. They spoke at vampiric speed, their panic and concern took their melodic voices to a shrill harmonic pitch.

Their panic was increasing the tension within me. The pull in my chest pulsed tighter again and, though I couldn't imagine how, the pain increased one more level still. I couldn't envisage a physical torture as horrific as this.

As the sensation in my chest stretched and pulled I realized it wasn't simply my connection to Jacob I could feel, it was the physical distance between us and our own inner discourse at the separation. I could feel him moving away from me. In that moment I truly understood how entwined with Jacob's my life now was. There was no stronger thing on this earth than that of imprinting. It superseded chemistry and physics.

I knew, without a doubt that the moment I would feel him by my side again, I would be whole once more.

I needed my sanity. I needed the quiet of his arms. I needed the comfort and complete wholeness that I'd felt as our eyes had met for the first time last night.

I closed my eyes to tune out my parents who were alternating between statues and smears of color as they paced, their speech and pitch now reminiscent of one of uncle Emmett's old 45's played at 78 speed. It was exacerbating the torture inside of me.

I focused inwardly instead. I mentally layered a soft, buffeting fire-blanket over the searing pain in my chest and instead focused on the steady, rhythmic pulsing of my heart. I let my mind wonder to the other deeper, more solid heartbeat that, in the course of an evening, I had memorized the tenor of.

Jake.

I let the mental image, the memory of his scent and the imprint of his soul on mine surround me.

I pushed back the pain and allowed the memory of his deep and dark eyes as we woke this morning to float to the surface. As he'd pulled my body against his, his muscles had bunched and the morning sunlight had played over his physique; it eased the burn and the memory warmed me from within. His touch, his kiss, his smile; he was the answer to all my agonies.

.

For thirty-seven minutes, both my parents sat century over me as I re-focused my energy. In a stalemate between taking flight and lingering, they had defaulted back to their natural state. Marble like statues; frozen in time and by their apprehension and impasse. My mom was sitting over my huddled and twitching body as dad stood at her side.

It felt as if there was an elastic band being stretched from within my chest, pulling and tearing. Then, as suddenly as it had originally been exacerbated, the tension was eased. The elastic cables connecting me to my mate began retracting and the sensation of him actually nearing me settled inside my heart. The inferno of pain was turned down to a flicker, like the white hot flame of a Bunsen burner before the collar is rotated and the flame starved of oxygen back to a warm yellow glow. Jake was coming to me.

I found the last shred of energy I had inside my soul and forced myself lift my head up, trying to push up onto my hands and knees.

My parents unfroze at my movement, "What are you doing sweetheart?" mom asked, hoping to preempt what I needed.

She couldn't help me.

Only Jacob could.

.

I could feel my chest filling, the essence of our bond expanding and heightening as he neared. I could _feel_ him approaching. I could feel his growing power inside of my soul. It created a physical reaction in me. The unsettling weakness left me and I pushed more easily up on to all fours.

My father's head turned suddenly, and mother's was only a split second behind as they stared down the interstate at something. It was approximately two seconds later that I heard it. The howling engine of the truck I had ridden in only a little over an hour ago to my apartment in Los Angeles.

I heard it only moments before I felt it. Moments before I'd felt him. Jacob.

Dad bent down, readying himself to pick me up and run. "His wolf is at the surface Bella, it's not safe."

"Don't Edward," mom answered, shifting protectively to block him. "He's not going to hurt her. You, on the other hand, he'll hurt _you_ if you try to take her..." she paused, squaring her jaw. "There are three of them, Edward. And I'm not going to fight those men I consider my friends," her hand pointing to the green truck borrowing down the interstate. "Just let me talk to him. Don't say anything that'll antagonize him. Just don't say anything," she corrected, pursing her lips.

The truck engine was roaring closer and the fire in my chest was now only a glowing coal.

I turned to look towards the road my hair created a spiraling lattice to see him though. At a frighteningly dangerous speed, I saw the titanic man— _my_ titanic man— jump from the rear of the utility truck, hitting the ground running and speeding up the embankment. He hand noting but a pair of cargo-like shorts on, his feet and his chest were bare. His muscles bunched and shifted as his broad and powerful shoulders moved with each stride.

One of the wolves called out his name as mother stood, turning.

"Jake," she said.

"Save your bullshit Bella." His voice was soothing and caressing me as hot hands wrapped around my waist. He lifted my up and pressed me to his even hotter and harder body. The painful fire was instantaneously snuffed out as my arms and legs wrapped around him. I was clinging on for dear life. I never wanted to apart from this man again. Not for an eternity.

"Jacob."

.

* * *

She whispered my name, pulling me to her as she wrapped both her arms and legs around me. My body filling up with love and wholeness as I pulled her chest to mine. Her warm fingers wound tight over my shoulders and my mind was filled with all the emotion of relief and love she could project.

She was whole and safe and in my arms. The ache in my chest completely disappeared the moment we touched, the imprint bond once again happily pulsing out love as she wrapped her long, thin legs around my hips and her sweet breath tickled my neck.

The man had been momentarily assured but the wolf wasn't. Her scent still wasn't right, she still reeked of leech, the animal didn't care what relationship the vampire was to her.

"She's not well, Jacob," Edward said, stepping closer and making to pull her from my arms. "Carlisle thinks we should bring her home."

She wasn't going anywhere.

The mere suggestion was more than my wolf could take.

With an imposing, deep-toned growl, I snarled at my natural enemies.

I turned on my heels in the tawny yellow dust and, faster than I should have in a public space, raced over the small mountain that lined the interstate.

.

Wrapped around me, with as much of our skin touching as we could, I carried Renesmee like this, with arms and legs clinging, for several miles. It took me barely half a minute to get my mate out of sight, and scent, and ear shot of the vamps... and the other wolves for that matter.

The instinct to keep her safe was in full bloom. And the middle of nowhere, with not a soul or soul_less_ being in sight was what the wolf demanded.

When we were satisfied that my mate was safe from, well… just about _everyone,_ I slowed to a walk. My wolf was still insisted on a survey of her; an inventory of her injuries. If she'd felt a fifth of the agony I had while we'd been separated, I would break the laws of science to make sure she felt better.

With one hand holding her by her round and perfect ass, the other smoothed over her hair, feeling the silkiness of her curls. I ran my hand down her back, counting vertebra and the ripples of her ribs in my wake. She seemed to be calmed too, I could hear her breathing in my scent.

.

"Are you okay?" I panted, more out of imagined anxiety than breathlessness. "Are you hurt?"

"Not anymore," she whispered into my neck, her lips softly kissing the tense chord of muscle there. "I missed you, Jake. Whatever that was, let's never let it happen again."

"Was it bad?" I asked as I continued to carry her up the mountain side.

"Horrific. But I'd do it all again if I got to feel you hold me like this every day." Her arms held me tighter as she buried her face in the side of my neck and inhaled deep and long once again.

I did the same, her steady swift pulse fluttering under my lips as I pressed them to her throat and then down to the healing scar on her shoulder. H er scent was tainted by leech, but even the wolf could smell the sweet wholesome smell of his mate. I could almost taste her also, the lingering musky odor of where I'd been last night... and this morning—if I was counting, that is. And apparently I was.

The wolf in me started to scent her. All of her. Small puffs of breath over her hair, her temples, over her lavender eyelids and down her flushed cheeks.

She let out a little giggle into the neck of my shirt as my sniffing went back down to her throat and then over the valley between her puppies.

She let out more soft and innocent, relieving giggles as she held my face between her boobs. My chest pulsed at the joy and my body shuddered in lust at her closeness. And her scent.

She lifted her head so that her neck stretched until our lips met. It was a soft gentle kiss that sent the familiar zing of electricity though my body. That internal combustion that could fuel the exhausted man. It had only been an hour, but being without her touch had starved me.

Her lips, so full and soft, moved over mine were like a feast. I was ravenous. Within seconds, our soft gentle kisses became so much more. My hand roamed over her shoulder, down her chest and grabbed a handful of her heavy, full breast. Lifting and pulling at it, my thumb rubbed over her shirt, fondling over her upright nipple as she kissed me back with just as much intensity.

I lifted her up and my lips trailed down, over her throat and nestled into the crook of her neck. My tongue found the little depression where her collar bone met the muscle, poking in and tickling her skin. My tongue traced circles over my mark, flicking at the mostly healed, raised skin… and then I inhaled.

.

That last hour of agony was washed away and all but forgotten. I wanted one thing, and one thing only. Her. She smelt like sex and mate and woman. The lingering scent of hopeless and fear from our separation had vanished and in its place was the heady, musky scent of her lust. The animal in me started to chafe at the bit, to chafe— over and over—at her _bits_.

I wanted to take her right there, right then. On the top of a road side mountain, overlooking a new housing development on the outskirts of Santa Clarita. I didn't care that her parents were only a mile or two back down to hill. Or that the sparky assed, double crossing vamps and my two closest, and nosey wolves would probably be hot on our heels in less than a minute. I wanted her so badly.

The wolf desperately wanted to stake his claim. Saturate her in his—my— scent. Reaffirm the bond that we had. The wolf wanted his mate. The compulsion was strong. So strong that I nearly gave into it on the gravely hillside.

But I wouldn't lose myself to the wolf. I refused to let him demean the woman who was my mate. The boy of seventeen had let the wolf take over when I'd run away and lost myself to him all those years ago. But I was a man now, with the sense and restraint of an alpha. I could control the way in which I lavished love on my spectacularly appealing mate.

I wanted to take my time reaffirming a bond that would last an eternity.

.

* * *

With his shirt was off, I was able to roam my hands over his musculature. I relished in the hard virility of my mate and cherished the love he felt towards me. I curled my hand around his deltoid and with my gift projected to him all the relief and love I could.

I pressed my lips to his neck, the tip of my noise tracing up the long thick corded line of muscle to his jaw as I let myself be wrapped by his quintessence.

Then father stepped towards us, his hand griping slightly on my arm, "She's not well, Jacob. Carlisle thinks we should bring her home."

.

I felt the immediate swing in Jacob, his body tensing and quivering with a repressed rage. I felt the rumble begin in his chest, expanding out through our joining abdomen and beyond. It was an animalistic, instinctive growl, one of an animal protecting its own from a predator. Jacob had done well to keep his wolf at bay, but my father's know-it-all attitude was the trigger for Jake to release the hold in the tether.

He spun, taking off at superhuman speed with me still wrapped firmly around his middle. I looked over his shoulder as we escaped, watching as my mother gestured for father to stay put as the men that Jake called his brothers moved to block daddy from following us also.

He carried me into a sparsely wooded forest and soon we were surrounded by the dark green of the oak with slender reddish brown acorns hanging heavy on the branches. The earthy, herbaceous scent of the sage plants underfoot wafted up and complemented the warm spice of his skin. I pressed a soft kiss to the square of his jaw, inhaling. I loved to breathe in his scent, it was intoxicating.

My hands traced over his skin as he carried me at a fast trot. I could tell that the wolf was still demanding he take me away from the indicated threat. If he needed to carry me, to protect me, I would let him. Besides, I was in no hurry for him to put me down. I liked the way his hands felt over my curves. I liked the way my soft lines molded to his well-defined angles. I liked being in his arms.

He slowed as we continued to make our way up the mountain side, now with less urgency in his step. "Are you okay?" he asked, his deep rumbling voice sending a flutter through my body. He rubbed his jaw against my temple in a wolf like caress, "are you hurt?"

Was I hurt? The current feelings and emotions coursing through me were the antithesis of hurt. I was exultant; energized; contented. I had all and everything I would ever want. I had _Him_.

No, I wasn't hurting any more, but I _had_ hurt though. I had experienced more pain in the last hour than I had in my seven years of life. By far.

I could still feel the tension whirling off Jacob, and I knew the wolf— and the man— would find it unacceptable to have allowed me to be injured and to have felt the pain that I had. I didn't want him to dwell on what agony I had experienced in his absence. He didn't need to know the degree of the torture. It would only serve to torture his mind. That was the last thing that I wanted for my mate.

I kissed the tense muscle of his neck, "not anymore," I said quietly. Then in an attempt to divert him from the topic slightly, I whispered against his pulse, "I missed you Jake. Whatever that was, let's never let it happen again."

But he wasn't diverted. "Was it bad?" he asked, his deep voice cracking at merely the thought of his imprint, the one person in this world that he would give his everything to protect being in pain.

And then it struck me. His concern wasn't so persistent simply because of our imprinted relationship, but because he too had felt it He'd also felt the pain of our separation, possibly even worse than I, and he'd still found the strength to find me. We had endured it apart yet throughout it all, we'd still been together. Joined in our agony. Joined in our love.

I owed him the honesty of an honest response. "Horrific," I said. Then holding him tighter, I rushed to add, "But I'd do it all again if I got to feel you hold me like this every day." It was true, the extreme elation I was now feeling from simply being held in his arms was worth the torture five times over. I pressed my face in to the crook of his neck once more and breathed in his soul filling, warm hearted, intoxicating scent.

.

Jacob then nuzzled into my throat his lips pressing a soft kiss to my pulse point. It was then that I felt the wolf re-surface. Like a sent hound, he sniffed at my hair, my face and over my eyes. A zig-zagging pattern that was slightly crazed and edgy.

His breath ticked down my throat and then lower. The warmth of his lips as they pressed between my breasts sent a tingle to my nipples, and then over my torso at it erupted in a fine sheen of goose pimples. I let out a soft laugh, relishing in the freedom and belonging in him. In less than a day, my world had become complete, and my body had been awakened. All because of Jacob. His soft touches awakened me once again.

In the safety of his arms I allowed myself to truly feel the man I was wrapped around. His hard muscle, his strong confidence, his unadulterated masculiness. My mate. I felt a fresh wetness in my vulva and the fire in my chest was once again lit. Only this time it was a pleasurable flame.

I looked up into his dark brown eyes as his pupils dilated with want. I read it as an indicator of his need. My eyes were trapped inside his heated gaze. I needed more than the touch of his hands and the feel of his body against mine. Holding on to his shoulders, I lifted myself up a little, stretching until my lips met his. The warmth of his lips and our tingling love pulsed though us. His kiss was gentle and exploratory. Within seconds however, the gentle warm tongue brushing over my inner lips was inside my mouth, tracing over the ridges of my palate. Tasting and teasing, as he kissed me with an open mouthed passion. I kissed him back with just as much verve.

My hips rolled against his hard abdomen, pressing and moving as his hand held me by my bottom. Instantly, I wanted and needed more.

I felt his erection pressing through his shorts, pressing up and searching out my wet heat between our pants. I felt my own need rise with his.

With tongues tussling and teeth viciously clicking, his other hand found my left breast. His scorching palm pulled and massaged in time to the pulling between my thighs. I wanted him to take me here in the gravely hillside. All sense of propriety vanished with my lust.

.

Then as suddenly as the heat had risen, his lips left mine. The abrupt break paused the passion for the moment. With added tenderness he traced a line down my throat, inhaling as he nestled his face into the crook of my neck. He inhaled deeply once more before a shuddering release of tension quaked over his body and he let out a calming, breath against my skin. The complete and unadulterated love he felt for me pulsed through our shared bond and in that moment, I felt like the most providential girl alive to have his love –human, vampire or hybrid.

His display of pure masculine strength combined with his sensitive adoration; it was my final undoing. I wanted to be closer physically. I shifted my hands, sliding them over the ripples of his muscle. Moving slowly over this chest and down his abdomen I found the little diagonal line of his oblique muscle, my fingers tickled perpendicularly to my leg, against the thigh that was still wrapped around his waist. I reached between my own legs, rubbing briefly over my denim clad clitoris and down into the waist of his pants.

"We can't," he whispered, a strained tremor in his voice as the hand that had been on my breast shifted to gently restrain my wandering hand. "Trust me," he smiled, kissing me sweetly, "I want to. But not like this Ness. Not here. Not right now."

.

He was right, of course, but the hormonal driven adolescent in me didn't care. I told him as much. I sent him images of us, engaging in the animalistic intercourse we'd shared in the shower earlier that morning. Our hips pounding together, faster and faster in abandonment. _I want you to press my naked skin into the gravel, Jake. I want you to make me come so hard that the sounds of our moans echo down to that valley beneath._ Then I sent him an image of the occupants of the housing estate on the other side of the rise hearing and knowing full well the meaning behind my screams of ecstasy. And then I let him feel the replicated sensation such an orgasm would generate.

He pulled me a little tighter to his chest, moaning in a knowing regret. "Oh god, woman. You're perfect." His hand released my wrist and once again rubbed and squeezed my breast through my shirt. I would forever be indebted to my Aunt Alice for that shopping trip she insisted we go on prior to me leaving for collage. The lace of my bra did little to obscure the sensations of his touch. His fingers found a hardened nipple and gently squeezed and twisted at it. It sent a little quiver of pleasure through me again and I let a little hum of appreciation escape my lips.

Then he pulled away, palpably dueling with the primal beast inside. "Later baby. I promise it'll be worth the wait." He lowered me to my feet and I regretfully unwound myself from him. We stayed standing face to face, my hands around his neck, his resting on my hips.

"If we do that, we'll scare the people down there Nessie," his head nodded towards the far side of the mound, "and any way, you're forgetting who's down _this_ side of the hill."

I had forgotten about a potential audience. Jacob; his mind, his heart, and his body all combined to make me forget everything by how good it all felt to be with him. With him in the emotional _and_ the carnal sense.

"I want to take my time loving every inch of your skin, Renesmee. I don't want to rush, and I don't want any interruptions," he said stooping down as his lips skimmed over my jaw and throat. I listed my head back to give Jake's lips better access. He drew a line with his nose from my manubrium, over my larynx, my chin and my lips before finally stopping with his nose pressing in to mine. We shared a soft lupine rub of noses as his eyes softened and his brilliant smile shone out. "I don't particularly want your father to rip my balls from my body either."

"No," I husked, pulling back and attempting to look seriously into his eyes, the mischief spilling out still. "Those balls are mine, and mine only." My hand quickly lowered to cup his bulge, lifting and weighing them in my palm. "We'll be needing them if we're going to add to the pack one day. Can't make puppies without out these puppies."

He sucked in a breath his eyes dilating as I froze at my seemingly rash words. My hand dropped away from his testicles in a swinging arc to my side.

It wasn't rash it was candid... and the god's honest truth.

I wanted his puppies.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Last time... **I wanted his puppies._

* * *

**Chapter 7**

I'd only met this extraordinary man yesterday. I had happily given him my first kiss and then merely an hour later, my virginity. I had been propelled into the word of imprinting and all of its glories. Then this morning brutally heaved back into the agony of our separation. And now I was planning to carry his offspring. Assuming I could reproduce, that is. Grandfather believed it was likely.

I had shocked myself. I had turned into one of those girls that I had privately mocked and derided. I had just realized that _I _was one of those girls who fell in love at first sight and then instantly started formulating an image of the life with the receiver of said affections would be like. A big white dress, a house with a picket fence, two point five children and a dog. At least we had the dog component taken into account already. I had shocked myself, because I was all those things that I had previously held contempt for. I didn't care now though, it felt too right, too natural. I assumed however, that Jacob would. He would care about my sudden declaration and I assumed he would care in a negative way.

But my words didn't have the presumed effect on his expression. There was no evidence of fear from my over commitment on his face. There was instead a curious look in Jacobs's eyes; a far off expression with a hint of a smile. His gaze fixed to mine and he brushed a loving hand over my hair.

"Is that something you'd like?" His eyes darted away and then back to mine in nervousness. "Would you like to carry my _puppies_ one day?" He bit his lip between his teeth as he waited my answer. I could hear his heart rate increase slightly.

I smiled, wetting my lips as I nodded silently, "I suppose, technically they'd be called _cubs_, but yes… I would… lots of them." There was absolutely no rationality to my announcement. The basic instincts within me had been awakened and with it, my primitive need to reproduce. Specifically and abundantly, with Jacob.

He beamed at my declaration, his tanned skin lighting up from within. I thought, not for the first time since we had met, how his smile transformed a striking man into one of deific magnificence.

Laughing his deep gravely chuckle, he picked me up, spinning me around. "You don't know how happy that makes the wolf Ness. He's fucking howling inside my head."

I laughed at his exuberance, letting the sheer joy that was radiating off my mate glow within me as well.

.

After several revolutions of spinning in my mates arms, he placed me solidly back on two feet, and he stepped back. He held me by the shoulders at arm's length, "Ness," he started, his eyes vehemently searching across my features, "will you come back to La Push with me? Like, now. Or in the next few days?" he asked, swallowing nervously but with the conviction of man who knew his own heart.

"Do you mean for a visit, or to live?"

"Which ever you want. I just want you to meet my father…" then he paused, his eyes searching upwards and over my left shoulder into the forest behind, "and my sister, I suppose. And the rest of my pack. They're all desperate to meet you in person, and smell you," he added, shifting as he lowered his lips to the angle of my jaw, kissing lightly on my heated skin. "Embry and Seth kept on going on and on about how good you smell." He kissed my neck once more, inhaling deeply. A low guttural purr emanating from his lips as I felt his lips smile against the crescent mark on my throat, "I'd have to agree."

I chuckled, shaking my head as I felt my face heat up, my nipples standing to attention as his lips brushed over the mark, my skin erupting in goose bumps at his touch.

"You are the Alpha's mate now, Ness," he whispered, his breath hot against the shell of my ear. "You're pretty much the most important person to the pack, to the entire tribe for that matter. You're definitely the most important person in my life." His voice was smoky as he pulled his hips against the curve of my stomach. The bulge of his fullness dragged over my skin. My body responded immediately, my hips twitching forward as I pressed closer. "You're my imprint, we're two halves of a whole, Nessie. I want you to be with me always. I don't ever want to go through what we just went through ever again."

He paused, leaning his shoulders back to look into my eyes, but with his hips still touching mine. He licked his lips, preparing himself. His eyes were slightly glassy, sincerity and passion penetrated his gaze. "I want you to come home with me," he'd entreated. "I want you to see it as your home too, Ness. We can build a home together."

As I listened to his heart-felt invitation, I smiled at my inner thoughts. The image I'd concocted of La Push sent a restful ease through me. I had never felt such a sense of perfection before. It had been as if all of my childhood, those last few years, they had been merely been a preparation to this. A life with Jacob. With his love. Surrounded by his essence.

The loving bond with in my chest pulsed. It was if the connection to my mate had been yet again strengthened and bolstered.

In the very deepest recesses of my soul I felt the rightness settle within me. I understood then, that the choice I'd just made was a turning point in my life. The previous path had simply been the training ground. This life with Jacob, _it_ was the journey. One I was proud to take.

My hand reached up and wrapped around his jaw, cupping lovingly over this defined angle as I looked back into his deep and soulful eyes. _The only place I ever want to be is by your side._ _I would very much like to live in your home, Jacob. In your house. With you… And eventually our puppies, _I smirked.

He beamed that gloriously transforming smile. It seemed his entirety was alight and radiating his joy. "It'd be our house," he smiled, his fingertip tracing over the line of my brow and down the crest of my cheek, "and our bed."

I let my body melt into his, my thigh pressing against his, my breasts pressing into his chest. Of course it would be our house… and bed. I hadn't been sure of the point during this whirlwind romance that it had happened, but at some point, I had ceased thinking as an "I", and was now thinking as a "we". We truly had become two halves of a whole. One ill-fated and thankfully, temporary separation had proved as much. Jacob was ingrained in my life. He had imprinted onto my soul. I lifted up on to my tippy toes, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. _Our home, _I communicated as our lips had touched,_ I quite like the sound of that._

We both smiled as we pulled away, full of the joyful endorphins of new love. "We can go today if you like? Or tomorrow," I had added aloud. I wanted to see this place my mate was so deeply connected to. I had always be a studious person, even as a young child I had been exceptionally inquisitive, and had a thirst for knowledge. My budding and yet absolute relationship with Jacob was no different. I wanted to know more. More about his pack, his family, his home; I wanted to know more about him.

His arms wrapped around me as his hands smoothed over the curve of my hips, "Don't you have classes?"

I shrugged, resting my head on his shoulder as we stood, face to face in the pine forest, our feet shuffling as we rocked back and forth in a stationary kind of dance. "School can wait," I said, bunching my hair up and pulling it over one shoulder, "I have an eternity to study."

There was a snapping sound behind us, a branch unnaturally cracking in the forest below us. A warning of an approach that I was positive was in no way accidental. Our heads turned as both my ghostly pale parents emerged up the embankment with the other two tanned men several feet behind.

"You have an eternity to play house and _make puppies _also Renesmee," father said, his agitated hands combing through his hair as the group had approached further.

.

I felt the instantaneous ire rise as I realized our private moment had been broadcast to the supernatural ears in the valley. Embry and Seth were both grinning. I took there grins as an approval to our declarations and plans. Mother had an uneasy, and yet happy look to her golden eyes, the inner fight between the human she had been and the vampire she was now was raging war behind her beautiful marble like face. My father left no doubt to his feeling on the matter. Disapproval.

Jacob and I parted infinitesimally as we turned, our sides had remained aligned as we both stood facing daddy, our arms still wrapped around the other's waist. I noted with a distracting sense of pleasure just how well we fitted together. My shoulder had nestled easily under his arm as he pulled me to him. Like two pieces of a puzzle, we fit together. We fit together in lots of other ways too. The memory of how Jacob's turgid shaft had fit so well inside of me flashed through my mind. My heart and my breathing accelerated at the recollection. Yes, I wanted to carry Jacobs's children one day, I thought once again, and I was looking forward to the frequent practice.

"Renesmee, listen to yourself," my father berated, his eyes boring into me, "you're distracted and unfocused. In a matter of _one_ day," he said as one of his fingers had lifted up to reinforce his words, "you're a love sick fool consumed by your basic instincts. Are you truly willing to throw all your study away? I don't know what's gotten into you." He waved his hands, gesturing madly towards me, "This girl I'm hearing isn't my Renesmee_._ Have you lost all sense of logic, child?"

Augh, he didn't understand. It had been the same argument only with a different subject matter each time. For eighteen months, my father and I had butted heads. I would push for more freedom and autonomy in regard to my own life. And Father would pull back, his over protective condescension exasperating me no end. "Would you get out of my head, dad" I shouted, stamping my foot on the gravelly hillside like a sullen child. "Mom," I whined, my voice adenoidal and embarrassing in front of my mate. "Please. Shield me."

"No," Jacob said, his voice orotund and sure, "Bella, don't."

.

* * *

.

I didn't know what this shield thing Bella had going on actually meant, but it seemed she could block the sparkly ass from hearing people's thoughts.

Nessie turned to me, a look of betrayal across her beautiful features. I reached a hand up, softly caressing down the side of her cheek, relishing in the smoothness and perfection of my imprints skin. "I think the problem is that he needs to hear it, Ness. Maybe you've been blocking him out too much. He still sees you as a child." My finger had traced down the line of her jaw, down to the join of her shoulder and neck. I traced over the two semi-circles of teeth marks I'd made and re-made several times over.

I could see the vamp's eyes zeroed in on Nessie's shoulder. His eyes had focused on the mark my fingers had gently mapped out. It was totally chauvinistic, and immature, but I couldn't help the little swell of smugness that bloomed within the love and lust I'd felt when I stroked the claiming mark. She was mine.

"She is still a child," Edward seethed, "she's seven years old and she's not property to be owned," his hand pulverized a branch that he'd been holding on to. He'd stood taller, squaring his shoulder as his eyes had narrowed and he stared calculatingly and coldly at me.

"And anyway, dog," he smirked back, "she can do better than her mother's off casts." His hand lifted up slowly then and he flicked some of the wood dust in my direction as a show of contempt. Like a fucking school boy. I lifted my hand up at supernatural speed to stop the light spray of chip before it hit me.

The wolf bristled under my skin, his fury was barely contained at the direct insult to him and by association, his mate. The wolf wanted to launch at his face and tear the cold one into obscurity. He'd been raging and pulling at his tether. My body had shook as I held back the phase, I refused to let the wolf's instincts win. I could fantasize, but I could never _actually _destroy Edward Cullen; I could never do that to my mate.

Instead, me— the man in control— smirked at the lanky old sparkly ass, hoping he was reading my mind. He could declare ownership all he liked. It was me she was clinging to. It was my scent that permeated her skin. It was my mark she wore. She was _mine_.

Ness nestled back into my side, he chin resting on my chest as she looked up at me. With her hand in mine, I felt the love and certainty between our bond pulse and reaffirm as she sent me a feeling of encouragement. My heated gaze softened and shifted down to Nessie's. Her glassy eyes shimmered in the midday light filtering through the leaves of the canopy. _You're not off-casts Jake. You're my mate and my protector. My wolf. Mine._

She reached up pressing her lips briefly to mine. The contact was all the reassurance I'd needed to pull back tight on the fighting wolf within.

.

With my arm still around Renesmee, my eyes had locked back with Edward's. Knowing he was _listening_ I recalled a life time of memories and heartbreak. Many of which starred, front and center, his wife and him. Then my memories flashed to last night. To the overwhelming scent of my imprint. The moment I'd met her eyes. The pure love and devotion I felt for his daughter. I recalled my initial thoughts on her age, and then her desperate pleas for my acceptance before I could pull away. There was a physical need, sure. But the adoration and love was second to none. She was my gravity; my reason for existing. There weren't words for the devotion. I recalled the feeling as best as I could for him to see and experience though my mind's eye.

The bond was undeniable. The love was pure. I'd felt it to my very core.

She was mine. And I was hers.

I knew this was the true and undeniable facts. And I knew, from the look in the leech's eyes that he'd heard me. He knew it too.

I let the wolf and the man be placated by that knowledge. I let myself relax and Ness settled further against me, her breasts pressing softly against my ribs. If needed, I'd physically fight for her. But only if necessary.

Eddie knew he'd been arguing a losing battle academically. And he knew that he was outnumbered physically. My wolves had seen the truth of our imprint. Even if they didn't agree— which they did— I knew they would follow me automatically anyway. Shit, even Bella had made a hushed gasp at Edward's cutting remarks. He'd pissed everyone off.

.

I could feel Nessie start trembling in my arms. She wasn't quaking with fear or anything as meek as that though. My mate was fierce, she was worthy of her new title of alpha's mate. Ness was vibrating in rage. With his stupid comments he'd managed to insult not only me, but his wife and only child too. Edward never knew when to shut the hell up.

My wolves were pissed off too. Seth released a quiet growl and Emb tapped him on the chest as he leaned forward, an irritated scow on his face, directed at my father.

"You're still an ass, Edward. You always have been and by the looks of things, you all ways will be. I'd pick Jake over you as the better man any day. Let the two of them figure things out without interference, why don't you. I know she's young, but any fool can see she ain't no child. And I don't just mean physically."

My Beta was lucky he'd been defending my mate, because a comment like that could have earned him a set of canines around the throat. Embry tapped a pointed finger to his temple a few times, "but mentally and emotionally. I only had to have a two minute conversation with her to see she was an adult. When was the last time you actually talked _to_ her, Edward, and not _at _her?"

The old man had bristled. His back stiffened and his jaw clenched as if in pain. His dead ass wasn't in pain though, he just didn't like to be wrong. And he'd begun to see just how wrong he was.

Because he was wrong; dead wrong. Ness had her own mind, and was more than capable of making her own choices, and she'd chosen me. But I knew that ganging up on him wasn't gunna solve anything. I didn't want him putting out any ultimatums or anything. I didn't want Edward making Ness choose between him and me. Because I knew she'd choose me and it would have broken her heart to do it. The wolf would never let her be hurt like that.

I didn't want to fight him either. I knew no good would come of it. The diplomatic alpha in me wanted to state a case and let diplomacy take the reins. "Edward, don't just take my word for it, listen to her mind," I said, stepping forward as I'd tucked Ness behind me. "Look at her honestly. She's not a child. From what she's told me, she stopped being a child months ago."

Winding a hand around his arm, Bella had looked up at him. "He's right Edward. Whether we like it or not, our baby's grown up." I looked at Bella, really looking at her for the first time since she'd appeared in Nessie's kitchen earlier this morning. The changes in my old friend were startling. Gone was the awkward clumsy girl I'd once known. This sparkly Bella was poised, and confident and not as afraid to tell the Douchward what she was thinking. She'd grown in to her new lease on life— that's using the term loosely though.

I could see the pained expression on Eddie's face. His fingers pinching his brow like I'd remembered him doing all those years ago. There was a silence around the tense circle of frenemies. My wolves were taking my lead and waiting for Eddie to speak. Bella knew him well enough to give the over protective fool a moment to think too. Ness though, she'd had a gut-full of her father.

.

"Augh," Ness's hiss pierced the air. A nearby bird took flight out of the thin canopy. "I can't believe we're even discussing this. Like it actually has anything to do with you!" she said to her seventeen slash one hundred and twenty something year old dad. That must be a mind fuck some times.

"It's my life dad! It's _my_ choice. Yes, I value your opinion, normally. But you're not objective about this dad. Is it because it's Jake I'm in love with? Is it because he's a wolf? Or would you be like this if Nahuel and I suddenly decided to become more than friends? Would you be so insistent if it was his scent or his mark you discovered on me instead?"

I didn't know who this _Nahuel_ fella was, but the still somewhat antsy wolf sensed a rival and rose to the surface. My body started to tremble against the phase and I pulled Ness protectively closer in response to this vague threat. Her closeness eased the tremor a little and her scent somewhat appeased the animal inside me. But he still wasn't happy. The wolf was a literal beast. It didn't understand hypothetical ideas. The man had to fight the animal from bursting out of my skin, but the man would still kill anyone who even looked at her in a physical way. She was mine.

She moved to my side and pressed herself against me, her warm fingers lightly touched my forearm as a flash of a native South American guy running and hunting beside her flickered inside my mind's eye. The emotion of brotherly love radiated from her. _Only you, _she mentally added.

Just that little piece of reassurance had my wolf standing down, circling a few times and curling around the contentment of our imprint.

.

"How did you do that?" Edward had asked, his head tilting in fascination.

Ness stood up taller, ready for more of a fight, "do what?"

"His wolf was ready to kill at just the mention of another male near you. You showed him a flash of a scene and two words of reassurance and he's placated? I don't understand how you can know him so well in only a day, Renesmee? Has it really only been a day?" he asked as his brows had pulled together.

I'd felt Nessie relax next to me as her pretty smile had softened towards her father.

"Yes daddy it's only been a day. It's the imprint. Can't you see we're perfect for each other? My soul knows his. And I know his mind like it's my own."

Our bond pulsed in warmth once again. My heart, soul, and entirety had filled up with the contentment of that perfect woman in my arms. She was beautiful, and smart, and loving. She balanced the wolf and the alpha's dominance. She would make a treasured addition to the pack. She had the caring and loving nature to be the perfect alpha's mate. The spirits had chosen correctly.

I knew that for all her riled-up anger and general animosity, my imprint loved her father. And I knew she wanted to keep a relationship with him and her mom. She'd just needed him to be open and receptive enough to really listen to her. She'd needed her dad to be open to her mind, to her thoughts, to her feelings; her true, and deep feelings. Not only her feelings for me but her desire to grow up, to spread her wings and become her own self.

I'd realized them then, that I would be whatever the imprint wanted me to be. It wasn't just the issue of my relationship with Ness that she'd need me for. Whether or not she knew it, she'd needed me to be a mediator between her and her father on all aspects of her life. So a mediator is what I'd become.

.

Nessie's eyes filled, a single tear escaping and trickling down her cheek as she stared intently at her father. Their eyes had locked as she telepathically exchanged months of pent-up ideas and aspirations. I could feel her love pulse as she showed him what we had found in each other. Our other half. Our soul mate. An Imprint.

A few minutes pasted by and Edward looked at me, his breath pausing as, for once, the mind reader was lost for words. "You're right. I can feel it," he said as he'd pressed his fist to his gut. He'd had a look of awe and incredulity about him. Like he was finally understanding and yet couldn't believe that something so intense could exist.

It did.

That was how much I loved her.

He turned to look at Bella, "you were right, Love. I should have trusted that she knows her own self. There's no separating them. It's very much like the bond we have. Only it's instantaneous and more visceral" he breathed. "She can _feel_ him."

.

* * *

.

My parents were locked in one of their statuesque, comatose, staring competitions they occasionally fell into when one, or both of them, discovered a profound concept.

My father had presently discovered that I had grown up. Even in human terms my growth had been rapid. However for a vampire who simply had to blink and miss a decade, my growth has been almost instantaneous. Certainly my maturity into adulthood had been abrupt, even from my viewpoint.

It took great difficulty for vampires to change. And I believed, that in that moment, my father had changed the very nature in which he saw me.

I was no longer daddy's little girl.

With my father still staring into nothingness, my mother had turned to me. Smiling, she'd stepped closer, her arms held out wide. I felt Jacob release his hand from where he had held me around the waist. His silent urge sanctioning me forward and into my mother's awaiting arms.

I truly disliked discourse within my family unit. The past year had been tumultuous, all culminating in one rash and under thought argument. But the argument had not only been won, it had been sanctioned. Not yet in so many words, but mother's embrace had started the process and I knew my father would give Jacob and I his blessing... after he'd had a moment—or two— to process. I was going to be given the freedom I desperately wanted and deserved.

Many times during my life father had put his foot down, so to speak, on matters of my upbringing and hobbies. He'd not allowed me to hunt the great white shark with Uncle Emmett and Uncle Jasper when we had traveled to the western side of Australia during my fifth year of life. Too dangerous, he'd said, my lung capacity was extraordinary but not infallible. It had taken years of begging and ultimately, my development into adolescence for him to finally allow me to be schooled in the public eye. And even then it had been with four chaperones.

Although with grievances and many a complaint, I had allowed my father's decrees to stand. However, on the matter of my freedom of choice, and my choice of love and mate, I was steadfast. This topic had been far too important to let my father dominate the outcome. And my doggedness had finally payed off.

.

"I still don't understand what the hell is going on?" Embry's surly voice lifted my attention from the cool, yet somehow still warm, embrace of my mother.

"Don't you get anything?" Seth teased in exasperation. "She's been fighting with her dad for ages, not just about dating but about being a grown up in general. He doesn't like heaps of the things she does and fucking Jake last night was just the icing on the cherry flavored, finger licking cake."

"Seth!" mother scolded as a tanned fist reached out and punched him in the jaw, sending Seth sprawling on to the ground.

The next thing I'd known, Jake was atop of the smaller wolf, pinning him to the ground as his bulging arms struck his face to the beat of his gritted words. "Don't you– ever say— such foul—mouth— things— about my imprint— ever— again, you hear me Clearwater?" he said, pulling the semi-conscious man up by the collar of his shirt and letting his head thump back onto the gravel beneath.

.

I'd never see such violence in my life. I'd seen my uncles, and Aunt Rose for that matter, wrestle and jostle, unleashing their supernatural power. But they'd never bled. And they were practically incapable of being hurt. I did recall a time, however where Jasper had taken a good hold of my Uncle Em and Rosalie had taken exception to it. She'd sprung into the melee, twisting Uncle Jasper's free arm back until it had come off from his body. It had been a horrific thing for me to see. I'd been almost three at the time. Aunt Rose had received quite the berating from my father, mother and grandmother. But there'd been no blood, and Aunty Alice simply helped him reattach it with some venom. Within minutes my eldest uncle was as good as new. No harm no fowl, apparently. I'd never expected to see such viciousness from my mate though. Seth had seemed to partially heal between each hit. The blood would congeal before once more gushing out of his nose and mouth with each additional blow.

.

"Jacob!" mother yelled, moving with supernatural speed to pull my incensed mate off his pack brother. I simply stood there, unresponsive like my statue-like father, as both Embry and mom pulled the two men apart.

As disturbing as his sudden outburst of violence was, the instinctual being within me was aroused and flattered. It was a curious dichotomy of sensations. After his show of strength and dominance the fear had acted to enflame the lust. I wanted his strength around me, atop of me, _in_ me. It was an animalistic need.

I recalled my initial thoughts as I had met Jacob last light at the fraternity party. Thoughts that he would do nicely for my first kiss. How little had I known just how _nicely_ he would do? I'd had no idea just how alpha and prime the man truly was. I didn't want to fight my attraction to him, I'd have been fighting a losing battle if I had. He was the pinnacle of all that was male, and he was mine.

With a heaving chest, Jacob had righted himself, stepping back from his bloodied friend and shouldered my mother and Embry off of him.

"Fuck bro!" Seth had sat up from the gravel and spat put a bright red lob of blood from his mouth. "I was only fucking joking."

"Well, it wasn't fucking funny." Jake said, feigning a nonchalance about his attack. I assumed the wolves were all physical beings, used to physical attacks and prompt recoveries. But I could feel Jacob's discomfit at his loss of control none the less. "You'll heal," he added over his shoulder.

Jake rubbed his knuckles, and took a single over-sized stride towards me. "Sorry Ness," he'd whispered as his arms engulfed me in a warm and in intense embrace. He then proceeded to breathe in against my hair, his quivering muscles palpably relaxing at my scent.

.

* * *

.

It was too much. It had finally all been too much. Holding in my rage as a vampire had physically threatened me, the pain and threat of losing my mate, then the hot-blooded foreplay in the forest followed by the superhuman restraint needed to hold off our physical rendezvous had pushed my restraint to the limit. And it had all been within breathing distance of leaches. I felt I'd done well to hold on so tight to the wolf. I knew Ness thought as much, but finally, as I'd allowed myself to relax and I'd loosened my grip, the beast had sprung free.

The wolf needed an outlet, so he attacked. Seth was already the closest to my fist and then he'd gone and said the wrong thing to seal the deal. I saw red. My fists squeezed hard and hit even harder. The wolf needed someone to be his punching bag. The man understood that Seth was being punished for nothing more than a foul-mouth misdemeanor but I'd lost control over the beast. Clearwater was a convenient target; the wolf knew that he'd heal and that it wouldn't start an all-out war, or upset my mate… much.

The wolf wouldn't tolerate any male taking about her, pack or not. Seth's mouth had really gotten dirty over the past few years. All the wolves had potty mouths, truth be told. It was often their undoing. And it had been Seth's too. I slammed my fist in to his face, over and over again. The submissive wolf was never going to speak like that about my mate ever again. She _was_ finger liking good, but my brother didn't know it as a fact. I had never _fucked _Renesmee either. It had always been love… and it always would be.

That's assuming that there was ever going to be another time. She was probably too scared of me now.

Fuck.

The realization hit me hard, harder than I'd been belting in to Seth. With one last punch and an aggressive dismissal, I pushed the wolf down and let the Alpha take control of my body, primarily my fist.

I let Bella and Embry pull me back. But the vicious wolf didn't like the cold ones touch, he didn't care that they belonged to my mate's mother, or that she'd once been one of my greatest friends. I sharply shook their hands off of me.

Inside I was panicked and irritated with myself; I've not lost control like that for years. The wolf and the man had such strong retractions to anything involving Ness. I was finally getting that I had to find new middle ground with my imprint in the equation. After I'd taken over Alpha from Sam all those years ago — in all honestly it had been a battle that I'd won—it took a few weeks for the pack to figure out what my wolf would and wouldn't tolerate. The game play had totally changed. It seemed that it had changed once again. A 2.0 book had been published. I was going to have to learn the new play book.

Embry and Bella let go of me once they'd realized I was back in control of my wolf. But the beast didn't want to show weakness in front of the leeches, or his mate. Like an asshole, I tossed Seth a few indifferent words, telling him he'd be okay and not in any way apologizing for the unprovoked beat down. The human in me was pissed at the wolf's obsession with saving face.

Irritated at my lack of control, I stepped towards Nessie, my saving grace. As Emb had put it earlier, my redeemer. Before I pulled Ness into my chest, ever the protector, my eyes flicked over to Edward who was finally thawing and taking in the scene before him.

"Sorry Ness," I mumbled, a poor apology for such a hideous display of unrestraint. Just as things were sorting themselves out, I fucking had to go and overreact. Right in front of my imprint I'd beaten the shit out of my brother. Just because he couldn't rein in his foul mouth. I'd hated that I'd let her see that uncontrolled side of me. I pulled her closer still as I'd breathed in her scent of perfection.

I had been expecting her to stiffen up at my touch, or even worse to pull away. But she didn't. Instead she leaned into me, scenting me in reply and pressing her lips to my chest. Her forehead lent directly to my breast bone and the heat and zap of her touch completely took the bite out the last of the wolf's bark. The wolf let the man be in charge of mating at least, most of the time. My dick woke up as she rubbed her hip against my crouch and her own scent of arousal wafted to my tongue.

Nessie placed both of her palms either side of my face, directing me to look at her. "Don't apologize to me Jacob. It's Seth's nose you broke seven times." Her gaze was soft, not overly criticizing, but understanding and sympathetic. My god she was perfect.

I held Ness, my hands fanning over the small of her back and her round backside as I'd turned to Seth. He'd taken off his shirt and was wiping the last bits of blood off his chin, the cuts and swelling to his lips had already all but healed. "Sorry dude," I shrugged, giving him a light hearted smile. "You know how it is. You can't trash talk about imprints."

"I know, I had it coming." Seth shrugged good-naturedly.

"The wolf was at his wit's end. I feel much better now though, if that's any consolation," I added, smirking at my old friend and a guy I considered as my brother long before we'd become great, big, hairy animals.

"Not really," Seth smirked as he used his fingers to wiggling a human canine tooth that was still a little loose. "But you've got to admit, Emrby is an idiot."

"I am not!" Emb grumbled as he smacked Seth on the back of the head. The wolves were all rough and physical beings. It's just how we did things. "I just find it hard to understand what's going on with all the mind reading shit."

Edward stepped forward, finally engaging in our little group again. He stood next to Bella, his arm draping around her shoulder as he looked at Embry. "I have to agree with you there, Embry," he smiled.

My friend had immediately stiffened, his mistrust in the vamp well enforced and ingrained. "What would you know about it Ed. You're the only reason we all got into this mess in the first place."

Edward tapped his forehead, winking, his tension and general uptightness weirdly gone. It was freaky how different this new Edward, who had reanimated after minutes of being a goddam statue, was. "I know everything, if I listen properly that is. And you're no idiot, you're just a man who likes the information laid out in front in him in black and white. Jake here, certainly thinks your intelligent enough. You wouldn't be his Second if you didn't have some skills. Don't doubt yourself so much young man."

.

* * *

.

Who was this man, and what had he done with my father? He had not spoken pleasantly, in any way, to the wolves since he had arrived this morning, yet here he was suddenly handing out compliments and words of encouragement.

Mother wrapped her arm around daddy, incapable of shedding the tears brimming in her eyes. Perhaps this was the kind hearted man she'd fallen in love with as a human girl. This was the man I had many fond memories of at any rate. It had only been the last few months while my father and I had been constantly bickering that my perception of him had been altered.

"I think we all have some apologies to make," mother said as her eyes had shifted away from my father's and over to Jacob's. She met him with a penitent regard. There was silence along the hillside apart from a few hesitant Chicago calls of a valley quail nearby and the roar of the passing traffic back down towards the motorway as we'd all waited.

My mother unnecessarily cleared her throat before biting on her lower lip in a way I'd never seen her do before. It seemed to mollify Jacob, his breath leaving him in a small puff of reminiscence.

"I'm sorry Jake," she said, her voice breaking as years of pent up regret flowed from her frozen soul. "Sorry for all the heartache. Sorry for leaving the way I did. Sorry for being a crappy friend."

Jake was silent as his finger had still absently grazed up and down the length of my arm. He seemingly gained comfort and restraint from the unconscious touch.

There was echoing seconds of silence as Jacob seemed to mull over mother's apology. Had it been too little, too late? He stroked down my arm one last time before his warm over sized hands held me firmly, as if to remind himself that I was still there. I leaned in to him, my back pressing into his chest and abdomen. Y_ou don't have to choose between us Jake. You have my support whatever you do. You can let her be your friend once more or she can remain your enemy. I'll still love you no matter which way you go. But I'll still love her too._

He bent down, pressing long and gentle kiss on to the crown of my head before righting himself, and squaring his shoulders.

.

He paused once more. His face a mask of impassiveness. I could feel his examination of the situation. He wanted his old friend to understand him without the emotional cues.

"So you had a kid," he stated, his voice devoid of any emotion.

Mother paused for a moment, evaluating, before a striking smile spread across her face. "And you've fallen in love with her I hear?"

"I have." Our bond pulsed with his declaration.

"And you want her to follow you back home?"

"I do."

Mom shifted on her foot, a very human posture, even for her. "What if I say you can't?"

"Then I'd say that's too bad, because she can make her own choices."

She raised a brow, sending my mate a final challenge of words. "And what if I said congratulations?"

"Then I'd say…" Jake paused, sucking in a long breath, "I'd say… thanks Bells."

Mothers face lit up like a part of her had finally been revived. I even saw a twitch of a smile across daddy's face too.

"I've missed you Jake," she puffed out, her voice was brittle as her face began to contort into tearless sobs.

"Same here Bells, same here," he nodded.

Mother stepped forward, her arms wide in a tacit gesture of embrace. "Can I?"

I gave Jacob a little push, encouraging him as daddy nodded in approval as well; the possessive seventeen year old from only an hour ago was gone.

But Jake hadn't moved, his hand still firmly held on to my arm. It was like I was his tether to the earth. I gave him the strength that he needed.

It seemed we both had that ability to the other. He was my strength as well. My soul and my spirit. But even so, it seemed he wasn't eager to touch my mother and her cold vampiric skin.

Jacob let an unsure sigh escape him. I could feel his inner battle with the wolf. Eventually the man won out though and he'd answered, "Sure," shrugging from across the four foot gap between them.

Mom rushed towards us at the first sign of his acquiescence. She threw her arms around both of us simultaneously and I felt Jacob stiffen somewhat. He patted her awkwardly on the back as she sobbed against his shoulder. "Don't cry Bells, you got everything you wanted, right?"

"Not everything," she sniffled.

.

* * *

**So what did you all think? Let me know in a review. I missed them last chapter.**

**Thanks Aretee for you beta-ing. You're the best-est.**

**Happy Wednesday folks!**

**Marina**


	8. Chapter 8

**Last time... **

_Mom rushed towards us at the first sign of his acquiescence. She threw her arms around both of us simultaneously and I felt Jacob stiffen somewhat. He patted her awkwardly on the back as she sobbed against his shoulder. "Don't cry Bells, you got everything you wanted, right?"_

_"Not everything," she sniffled._

_._

* * *

**.**

**Chapter 8**

I felt both Ness and I stiffen at Bella's words. What was she implying? That she still held feelings for me? I sincerely hope not. Because I'm Nessie's. And she's mine.

Seth obviously had similar qualms. "Bella that's enough," he snapped, spitting one last glob of congealed blood from his now fully healed mouth.

Bella's head lifted up and she pulled back from both Ness and I.

"That's really not fair to anyone," Seth continued. "Not to Jake, not to Ness, and not to Edward." He pointed to each of us as he spoke. "You don't get to hedge your bets anymore. And especially not at your own daughter's expense."

"What?" Bella asked stepping away from her daughter and me.

I felt the tensions climb between us all. The wolves rising in a slightly more aggressive stance and Bella and the Ed putting their foot on the defensive back—but for different reasons.

I could see Edward's eye twitch to mine as I noted how he was standing off to the side and that Bella had managed to get herself circled-in between me and the other two pissed-off wolves.

The strategist wolf noted how easy it would have been to take the vamp down the way she was divided from her mate. But the wolf wasn't in charge. I pulled tight on the proverbial choker chain and reined in the primal beast. The female cold one wasn't the enemy, she might smell like it, but she wasn't like the other leeches. She's our mate's mother and that made her pack. Both the leeches were now.

Seth stepped closed to my old friend, his body tremoring in his indignation. "He's imprinted on your daughter, Bella. When do you let him go?"

My wolves were loyal. Even after I'd beaten him in the face, over and over, for basically no reason, he still had my back. I had the best family in the world.

He stood over the bloodsucker, not realizing the awesome strategic position he'd placed us in. He was angry, but Seth wasn't an aggressive wolf, and it would never have even occurred to him to talk advantage. Not that I wanted him to.

And Bella wasn't a fighter, she seemed to have no clue how vulnerable she was right now either. But Ed did. He'd seen it potentially unfolding in my mind as he stood by powerless to prevent it. Lucky for him I had control of my wolf, and that I was irrevocably in love with, and bound to his daughter.

We locked eyes for a moment as he acknowledged my inner thoughts. Nodding in a silent thanks.

He recognized our truce and compromise as the family we now were.

Still completely unaware of just how close to feasibly losing her head she could have been Bells, flustered at Seth, confused at his accusation. "What?" she clipped, her head turning to me and then back to Seth's. "No! Not Jake," the aversion rolled off her, a grimace spoilt her marble like face. I wanted to be insulted by her apparent repulsion, instead I was just relieved, and so was Ness judging by the way her shoulders softened as she leaned a little heavier into me.

"My dad," Bells explained, her eyes turning to her husband as she swallowed nervously, her hands twisting together. "It's my biggest regret over all of this. Charlie never knew what really happened. I did nothing but lie and deceive him, and then I left him. Alone. Without a trace. With nothing but a poor excuse for my death."

She was wrong, the chief did know; and it damn near killed him when he found out. Embry and I both looked at each other as Seth turned to see my reaction to her confession over his shoulder.

I lifted my hand, gesturing to him, "Go ahead." There wasn't any reason for us not to tell her. Apart from just being an asshole.

"What?" Ness asked, looking up into my eyes, her palm pressed firmly against my naked chest.

I squeezed the top of her arm, not responding verbally, instead I just looked gratingly my brother, "Seth," I offered again.

I'd been involved I the actual _telling/ showing_ of the tribe's story to Charlie. But it was Seth's story. Charlie was his stepdad now. And he'd had to see the mess, day in and day out, that followed once the lost man had been made aware of the truth.

He nodded, and turned back to Bella. "Charlie does now. He's known for years, Bella."

"What? No. He can't. The Volturi."

"He's a member of the tribe, he had a right to know."

"What?" she said, her voice was ringing over the trees. "The tribe? Why?"

"He married my mom a few years back."

"He married Sue? What?"

"Would you stop saying 'what' and just listen?"

"Sorry," she cried, "it's just… he... he knows that I'm not really dead?"

"Depends on your definition of _dead_," Embry mumbled, all the supernatural ears hearing like he'd yelled it.

I growled a little at Emb, "dude, not helpful."

"Sorry but…" he shrugged, catching my aggravated scowl and let any further insults be left unsaid.

Bella turned to me, betrayal written across her features. "You told him? You put him at risk?"

The alpha bristled, I didn't have to answer to her. Friend or not. She was a cold one now. She'd lost any right to an opinion the moment her heart stopped beating. But for Nessie's sake I explained. "_I_ didn't tell him. My dad did. And only after he started to ask questions."

I shifted a little, draping my arm over Ness's shoulder, "He's a smart man Bella, and a damn good cop. There was no way he wasn't gunna notice a dozen gigantic, half naked fellas running out of the forest at god knows what time of the morning and night. He'd seen me coming in at Dad's place enough times, and then caught both Leah and Seth coming home one night that he was staying over at Sue's place and well…" I shrugged, smirking at the memory, "Sue asked my dad and me over for breakfast that next morning and… he got the _real_ tribe histories, with Seth and I stripping down and phasing as evidence."

"And… what…. H…how did he take it? When you told him about me, that is?"

"Once he got over the initial shock of our hairy asses, he pretty much re-grieved for you all over again Bella," I stated. "I'm not gunna sugar coat the fucked up mess Charlie went through when he found out the truth. And I mean the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That lying and half-truths thing is Edward's MO, not _my_ packs."

Nessie's warm finger's reached up to the hand hanging over her shoulder, they wrapped around my wrist as her thumb made small circles on my skin. "So," she asked, her hand giving my arm a gently squeeze, "Can _I_ meet him?" She had such an innocent hopefulness in her voice. "And can he know who I really am?"

I looked down at her, the anticipation and relief was pulsing between us, and in her eyes too.

Bella pressed her hands to her lips as Edward had appeared beside her, holding her up. She'd just realized the implications of a) her father knowing she wasn't really dead in a plane crash over the Serra da Mantiqueira in Brazil and b) her daughter now being imbedded within the pack and the Quileute people.

"Do you think he'd see me?" she asked.

A silent sob caught in her throat as I nodded silently to both mother and daughter.

Bella looked up at her husband, "My dad, Edward. I can see my dad."

.

* * *

.

My grandfather, Charlie Swan, was merely a hazy, abstract image in my mind's eye. Mother had spoken of him on occasion, but not often. It had been made apparent though, just how painful talking about her father must have been. And just how much he missed him.

The list of pros versus cons, in regard to visiting and possibly—probably—living in La Push was growing larger by the minute. As loving and nurturing as my vampiric grandparents were, they weren't blood, so to speak. My mother's biological father on the on the other hand, was.

I'd been told once by my aunt Alice that Charlie was where my mother had originally got her deep brown eye color from, and in turn, were I had too.

I wondered what other genetic traits I had inherited from him.

How would he receive me?

How would his new wife, and the tribe?

I felt a sudden glow of surprised happiness as I appreciated that— aside from my new relationship with Jacob— I was already an ancillary member of his tribe. By marriage that is. My grandfather was married to one of the wolves' mother's.

"So Seth," I smiled, "does that mean you and mom are step siblings?"

"I suppose it does," he answered, shifting uncomfortably on his soles.

Jake laughed at his friend's discomfort. "And I think you'd better start calling him Uncle too, Ness."

Father had laughed aloud and heartedly, I'd guessed, at someone's thoughts, "No, Seth. I don't think Leah will take it all that well. Even if she has retired the wolf."

"I'll let mom tell her then."

"Good idea."

"My mom is really going to like you though Ness," Seth said, turning towards us.

I smiled and blushed a little at the thought of my step-grandmother's approval. It was a convoluted and baroque family I was about to be thrust into. But I was looking forward to the challenges and rewards it would hold.

Then my father's eyes shifted to Jacob's and they had then become locked in some kind of silent conversation.

"You're confident about Renesmee's welcome, but what about Bella and me? What about my extended family?" father asked, his eyes narrowing. "I refuse to be excluded from Renesmee's life. How will _we_ be received by the pack if we move back to the house in Forks?"

"The pack will abide by any new treaty I put in place. Some might not like it, but they'll obey. The tribe though," he sighed. "I have some influence but I don't control them, Edward." The leader and diplomat in my mate shone though. "There's still a lot of animosity towards the Cullen's. I won't lie to you. I doubt the council is going to allow you to come on Reservation lands, except in emergencies."

"But Forks is okay for them to live?" I asked him. From what I remembered, it was less than a thirty minute drive from the reservation to the heart of Forks, Washington. A life with Jacob, _and_ my family close by was more than I could have hoped for.

He nodded, "the house is still there. If they want to move back, I won't stop them."

He twisted, spinning so that I was facing him and he looked deeply into my eyes, his brow softening as our bond pulsed in support. His heat and rigidity pressed against the soft curves of my abdomen. He pulled me closer and his hands fanned over the small of my back and the top of my bottom. He lent down, kissing me softly on the lips, and then twice more on either eyelid. It was gentle and romantic, and I swore I melted a little inside. "And if it's going to make you happy, Nessie, I'll help make it as easy for them as I can." His lips pulled back only a few millimeters as his sweet breath brushed over me. "I'll try and get the council of elders to agree to an even more lenient treaty.

"I'm sure you'll want it so that your mom can visit when you need her," he winked, his eye dilated. As he looked at me, I could see the yawning ancient depth to them. I'd only seen his eyes like that once or twice before. I was beginning to understand that those eyes were both the man's and the beast's. They were the same and one.

My head cocked to the side as I stared at him for a moment, searching his face as I tried to understand his seemingly offhand comment. But I could tell there was a cryptic meaning to them, our bond was humming far too happily for it to be unimportant. He was happy and expectant. At peace—at least for the moment—and excited as well.

He'd bit his bottom lip between his teeth in a smile and his brows raised, flicking up and down a few times as he waited for me to clue on.

And then I did.

Like a wave, the comprehension flowed through me, lifting and tumbling as it came hurtling on the shore with a crash. It ignited an inner spark in my chest.

My mate and I were on the same wavelength. A lust filed one.

"Yeah, that would be nice," I grinned, my hands winding up and linking behind his neck, my forearms leaning lightly on his shoulders.

His stomach and groin pressed hard into mine.

Jake had guessed that I would want my mother around when we had young children to tend to. He was correct.

I smiled softly at his enthusiasm and passion, a tingle ran up my spine as his fingers tickled up and then down my vertebra before he reached my ass and pulled me to him. The hard pulse of his arousal pressed against my clitoris and my knees jerked in protest and surrender. The mating instinct was never far from the wolves mind.

And now that I'd been reminded, it wasn't very far from my mind either.

In fact, it had instantaneously become a compulsion.

.

Suddenly and all at once I'd become obsessed with him, and his body. I'd become obsessed with getting it all as close to me as possible. Minus the clothes and minus the prophylactics.

I felt a biological urge to _mate_.

We pressed our bodies tightly together and I could feel both of us grow in our arousal. We'd completely disregarded the audience surrounding us. I felt my own need mature, a tingling sensation flowing through my veins, leading down to the puling throb between my legs. It was extreme and perfect and compulsive.

Even though we'd only been speaking hypothetically of the _puppies _we might have, I suddenly found myself overcome with the desire to reproduce. Or at the very least rehearse the maneuver.

That wasn't strictly true. I wasn't just _willing_ to fall pregnant or simply _rehearse_ it.

I wanted it.

I desired it.

It was a hot blooded need.

I shifted my hips, rolling them over his growing need. I wanted him. I needed him.

.

Without warning, I'd had enough of talk and compromise. I wanted my mate.

Now.

Immediately.

I didn't care who might witness it. My logical mind had been left somewhere between the discussion of my grandfather and the clauses in a vampire werewolf treaty. I didn't care anymore.

I just wanted Jake.

Undressed.

And then inside me.

Around me.

Filling me.

.

My mouth dried as my breath heaved in and out. I sucked hard kisses over his throat, down the line of his hot, pulsing Jugular vein. My hands explored over his muscles, fingers running between each defined valley and rise. His skin was smooth and warm and my fingers tingled as I'd allowed myself to get lost in his scent and heat.

I was losing my physical control, getting swept up in the heat and hedonism of my instincts. But my mate seemed immune for the moment. Jake's hands were gently exploring over my hips and the small of my back, but he hadn't lost control. I was sure he was close to surrendering to the animal, but he hadn't allowed himself to get quite as carried away as I had. With a cheeky and knowing glint to his eyes, he pulled his hips back from mine and his hand softly cupped my jaw, stilling my relentless kisses.

His thumb traced around my lower lip as his eyes flicked between mine, "you're really going to come home with me?" A life time of patience and promise in his reverential eyes.

I nodded, puffing and slightly incoherent. "The sooner the better," I whispered trying to re-center my thoughts. They were a jumble of lust and heat and need.

He pressed his forehead to mine, the rough scratch of his stubble rubbed against my cheek in a very lupine way. He breathed in deeply, savoring my scent. "I waited so long for you, Woman. And the spirits haven't let me down. You're so perfect. God... everything about you," he rumbled, his hands settling on my hips as his thumbs traced along the underside of my breasts.

I understood. We were made for the other, physically, emotionally and spiritually. But especially physically.

This man holding me was the epitome of all that was _man_. My Jake. My mate. My Imprint. I wanted him… on me… in me…now.

"Soon Renesmee," my father grumbled.

.

His voice snapped me from my lust filled obsessions.

Much to my humiliation, I realized that he heard my mind. And by the sniggering of the wolves, they'd all smelt and witnessed my unbridled arousal too.

My mother was looking at me with a mixture of good humored shock and uneasiness. I'd been quite sure that if she had still been human she'd have a scarlet blush adorning her pallid face.

As the realization of just how licentious I'd just behaved over the last few minutes, the complete mortification arrived. "Oh god," I mumbled, leaning my face into Jacob's chest. "What the hell is wrong with me?"

There was silence apart from Jacob's quiet crooning of mollification as his hand ran through my hair. His hands were warm and strong and –even in my state of shame—I wanted his callused palms all over my naked skin.

My mind began to wonder once more. Fantasies of his hands and his lips and his hard throbbing manhood began swirling around my mind and pulsing though me.

And then, completely pulling me from my unfulfilled daydream, Embry decided to answer my rhetorical question.

"You're the alpha's mate, Ness," he said, as if that answered everything. "The Alpha is a lot of things for the pack. He's a leader, he's a coach, and he's our voice. But he's also the breeder."

I gave him a look of indignity as my eyes had flicked to my parents and then back to him.

Emrby put his hand out in a placating gesture. "I know, I know. It's totally weird and not at all the conversation I'd expect you to have in front of you parents. But you guys are meant to make babies," he said, stepping closer to me and placing a paternal slap on both our shoulders.

"Why do you think you've been thinking about cubs so soon? It's not cause you're immature or anything. It's 'cause your instincts have taken over," Seth added.

My dad nodded, "I absolutely loath to admit it, but I think the wolves are right. Sorry sweet heart, but I've been listening to your mind. You're truly not thinking like the Ren I know. You're instinctual, inconsistent and quite frankly, obsessed with carnal thoughts."

I moaned again, the heat of a flush raining over the cheeks that I pressed into my lover's shoulder. I was truly mortified; I didn't want Jake to think I was some kind of sex crazed lunatic.

Dad smiled, "he's almost as bad as you sweetie. Jake's just used to maintaining his self-control, that's all," he added, obviously trying very hard not to hear both mine and Jacobs's thoughts.

.

"I think your dad really fucked things up when he drove you away from him," Embry butted in again continuing as if he'd never stopped to take breath. "You guys need physical touch. All of us wolves do. But I've been thinking about it, none of the imprinted wolves separated when they first imprinted. Not for weeks and weeks. The ones who were a couple made a nest together for days and days.

"Yeah," Seth added, "Even Quil and little Claire played and played from sun up to sun down, dress-ups and tea parties. He carried that kid around everywhere. Now a days they're just about painting nails and loom bands."

Embry nodded at his pack mate, turning and pointing two fingers at Jake and me. "But you two, you've got it ramped up another level again. You're meeting in your prime. You're unbreakable, Ness. And you're both far closer to the inner animal than the average human."

He paused for a moment, thinking to himself. Then he'd started to nod in approval of his own point of view. My father, having heard what Embry was thinking started the in breath of a warning hiss which was cut off by the wolf's awkward opinion. "Yep," Embry said to himself, "I think, Ness, that you've gone into heat… or something like that."

"Watch your mouth, Embry," Jake growled.

"I'm not joking about it, Jake. Think about it."

No, I didn't want him or me or anyone to think about it.

Yes, I was a scientist at heart. And yes, I'd spent the better half of my short life dissecting human social interaction in order to gain a better understanding of it. Hell, just going to the frat party was initially nothing more than another step in my life long hypothesis. But I no longer wanted to be the subject. I didn't want to be emotionally dissected and observed. The best decision of my life was to go to that fraternity party. To go sit outside behind the stoners. To meet the eyes of my wolf and let him sweep me away in a whirlwind of desire and carnal heat. His heat and his body were all I could think about.

The scientist inside was quieted and she'd taken a very far back row to the imprint and woman inside. Maybe Embry was right and this overwhelming instinctual desire was a form of rutting period, I didn't know. I was sure I'd want to study my chemistry and behaviors at a later date. But it wasn't now. It really, _really _wasn't now. Right now, I just wanted to feel this desire and humming sexual energy I had flowing through my veins.

Now, all that I wanted was to be at one with my mate. To be with Jacob. To simply be left alone so we could be together. And when I say together, I mean grunting, writhing, hopefully impregnating sex… and lots of it.

"Can we not discuss this anymore?" I said, cutting them all from their discussion about my potential estrus. It was humiliating enough. I no longer cared. And this wasn't the place for a symposium in veterinary science.

"Good idea," Jake agreed, effectively ending the topic.

.

We were all quiet for a moment, no one willing to suggest the next move as we all started to realign our directions to down the hill, slightly closer to the interstate and our parked cars.

Our entire little mismatched group barely moved. In forty-six seconds there had only been a slight shuffle back and forth with no one talking either. Embry had cleared his throat, and mom had sighed, it was an unnecessary movement of air, but she had sighed all the same.

It occurred to me that possibly I was the one who was being waited on to speak. But what was I to say?_ Hey everyone. Well, this catch-up's been great but Jake and I might just go. Apparently I'm in heat or something, and well, my mate is a virile, toned, alpha god, and I'd really like to go have some more unprotected shower sex with him? _

I didn't think so.

My head jerked to the side as I computed what I'd just thought to myself—and probably dad. Oh god, we'd already had unprotected shower sex. I waited for the inevitable panic and worry to surge through me. But it never came. Instead I was washed with a serine feeling of rightness. It was no wonder everyone had been commenting on my scent at breakfast. Jake hadn't been merely on my skin, but his very essence was inside me too. The sentiment had made me ecstatic.

Maybe I was already pregnant.

I hoped so.

None the less, I wanted more.

Now.

I pressed my hand to Jake's chest. _Take me away now Jacob. Please. I need you inside me. Ravish me._

He sucked in a quick breath of air and I felt his entirety quiver before a low, hot, out breath of air escaped his teeth in a grunt as he nodded once.

"Ness and I are gunna take Seth's truck," he said to everyone, his bass voice clipping with authority as he broke the gauche standoff. Then he turned to look at his two wolf brothers, "you two are gunna have to walk back to the apartment. "

"I don't want to walk back Jake," Seth moaned, his bare foot kicking at a low lying plant nearby. "Fuck, it's too open around here, we can't even run as wolves. It'll take us hours."

"Well, go in the Volvo, I'm sure Edward won't mind." Jake's tone seemed to dare dad to object.

"That's fine," he nodded, "there's more than enough room." Father was being awfully accommodating all of sudden. And then I'd realized he'd heard me. My humiliation increased another echelon sill.

Both of Embry's arms raised up, his palms lifting as a single finger on each hand jabbed at the air. "There is no way on god's earth I'm putting up with leech smell all the way back to the city."

Jake shot Embry a look of authority, "You can roll the window down." He'd left no room for discussion. Then he took me by the hand, his safe and sure fingers linked between mine and we started a fast trot back down the hillside. There was an electrical current flowing between our palms. I felt his edginess and it only made mine harder to rein in still.

We were less than half way down the hillside when Jake began to breathe heavily, a thin sheen of sweat beaded over my mates forehead as he tremored around the hand he was gripping tightly. He looked like the wolf was ready to burst free from his skin at any moment.

His desire had seemed even more of a barely repressed compulsion.

.

* * *

.

I hadn't had the strength to fully hold back the wolf. Once that luscious sent of Ness had changed, morphing into the fruity, ripe scent of her readiness he'd insisted on taking charge. He'd cut off the bullshit talk. He'd given his troops their orders. He was half a mile closer to a place where he could be with his mate in the flesh.

Her sudden and complete inhibition had surrounded me. The man had managed to pull her back, but he'd not held control for long. The wolf had risen to run the show.

It had been taking all the strength of the man inside for me to not just rip her clothes from her body, press her hands and knees to the earth beneath and mount her right there on the road side hill. Wolf, vampire, or parent spectators be dammed.

The wolf would never have deny his imprint anything. Not only had I not wanted to, but I'd been physically incapable of doing so. She had _literally _asked to be ravished. She was going to get what she'd wanted. The man inside only demanding that we find somewhere more private that the side of The 5.

As we walked, hand in hand, I turned. Our eyes meet and our bond pulsed. Her hair bounced and so did her tits as she walked. I let out a soft purr of approval as I watched her keep pace with me, her long legs in those skinny jeans a good match for my height as we walked. I imagined them naked and looking even better wrapped around my waist. Her pupils had dilated at my rumble, and a fresh plume of her arousal had peaked at my heightened senses. Much better around my waist as I slammed her balls deep, over and over.

The throb in in my dick almost brought me to my knees. But I fought the urge to have her then and there. At the very least I needed to hold her though. And then get her to a better location. Somewhere where her legs could be wrapped naked around my waist.

With that thought in mind, I scooped her up, swinging her into my arms and I carried her. I increased to a loping trot, covering as much distance as I could without being too fast for the human that might see us in the open forest. Seth was right, it really was open, thinning even more as we approached the road.

And Embry was probably right, too. If my sudden and barely controlled need to take Ness, and the spectacularly, fucking amazing, musky, sweet, sexy scent wafting off her was anything to go by, she was in heat… or something like that. I wanted her so bad.

The wolves came to march as century for me. Their protective instincts for the Alpha and his mate had risen the moment they'd realized how desperate we both were to be alone. And with that realization the whining had stopped too.

Once we arrived at the road side, Seth held out the key to his truck wordlessly as I placed Ness gently on the passenger seat.

I wasn't sure where we were headed, only that it had to be private, secure and probably sound proof. Holding my tremoring muscles at bay, I closed the passenger door gently. Pausing by the window, I realized that I would I need money to get a hotel room.

I breathed out a frustrated breath of exasperation. My wallet was back at Seth's apartment; somewhere between a fresh change of clothes and a half empty box of condoms. Why was this shit always so hard? I didn't want to have to drive all the way back to the Palisades. I needed to find us a nearby hotel, now. Or we'd both succumb to the animals inside and regret the public display that would inevitably follow.

I felt like a man hanging by a ledge, my fingertips holding on with the last inch of my grip. I was terrified I'd fall into the abyss. Because if I did, then I'd directly fall into Ness, over and over, in and out; blind to who was watching and where we were.

"Seth, Embry," I barked. I could hear the strain in my voice, the sweat was beading down my face and wiped it absently with the back of my shaking hand. "Give me all the money you have," I said as I grabbed Seth's keys from his offered hand. The sharp clink of the metal had been muffled and silenced by my palm.

I was being an ass. A rude, autocratic ass. I knew it. But I didn't have the patience for the niceties of humanity. The wolf demanded nothing but total loyalty and subservience from his pack. On any other day, with any other set of circumstances, the man would have asked more nicely. My friends knew that too. They knew how desperate we both were now. They knew we were only hanging on by a thread of self-control.

"I only got my emergency twenty," Seth said, fishing the tightly folded note from the inside of his sock and handing it over.  
Embry on the other hand is one of the more fiscal wolves in my pack, he was steady and organized. And he still had his wallet on him. He pulled out two cards, handing them over. "Most hotels won't give you a room with just cash. Not the ones you'd want to take your mate to anyway," he'd added. A little blush formed on his cheeks, his eyes skimming to Both Edward and Bella who had stood off, just out of immediate sight.

Embry was conscious of speaking about Ness being my mate in front of her parents. My wolf couldn't give two flying fucks what they thought.

Ness was mine. And I was hers.

He was taking his mate.

Soon.

So, very, very, soon.

Taking the cards with a mumble of distracted thanks, I shifted, turning closer to the truck. My gaze had moved over to the shining metal of the truck, over the hood, and through the windscreen to her face. She was still sitting in the passenger seat, her belt now clipped across her chest, her mass of ringlets thrown over one shoulder.

Our eyes met and I felt our bond pulse. It throbbed though my chest.

The love.

The commitment.

The desire.

The hot blooded need.

Her lips parted, turning upwards slightly as she nodded. It was only been a small movement but I'd seen it. It was a silent gesture of invite.

I felt my eyebrows rise, a leer had formed on my lips as Ness and I communicated through the glass of the windshield. I could feel her desperation through our bond. She was dying to leave. She was impatient to be with me.

I felt exactly same. The one track mind of the wolf had finally converged with the Alpha and the man.

I turned the ignition, pumping the gas twice before pushing the shifter into reverse and backing out on to the interstate.

.

* * *

.

The air was thick with our desire as we sped down the interstate. Our heart rates remained accelerated and Jake's breath was steady and deep. It had been like each breath was a conscious way for him to stay in control. I figured that that was precisely what he was doing; staying in control long enough to find us the privacy we so desperately needed. The least I could do was reciprocate the strength of will.

We traveled north bound for a little over five minutes, my hands gripping hard to the edge of the vinyl seat beneath my hands. Jacob turned off at the first hotel sign, which was a Best Western with a ranch style finish. It was dated and lackluster, but I couldn't have cared less. So long as it had a bed available, it was the perfect place.

He pulled into a parking space and hand-in-hand we walked at an excruciatingly _human_ speed to the front desk.

"Do you have any rooms for tonight?" Jake asked, the forced politeness in his tone would have been amusing if I'd not been so fraught myself.

There was an older man behind the counter, his hair was thinning and combed over his scalp with an oily looking lacquer. He looked Jacob up and down over his half rimmed spectacles, taking in my mate's herculean size and his lack of shirt, as he typed on his computer. After what seemed to be interminable minutes, the man with the glasses looked up from his screen. "Would you like a room or a suite?"

I could sense Jacobs's frustrations, I was feeling it too. "It doesn't matter," he clipped, "whatever's easiest."

"The suite has a king size bed," the balding man offered, his brow raising in a slight innuendo.

"Yeah, good, we'll take the suite then," I said, stepping closer to the counter, my arms resting on the marble as I'd offered the man one of my humanly mesmerizing smiles in a hope to get the process sped up somewhat. My strength of will was waning.

The man's two un-manicured fingers slowly hunted and pecked their way across the key board and after an excruciating set of never ending minutes, we were finally checked in as Mr. and Mrs. Embry Call. The photo identification on the card was close enough for the man behind the counter.

With basic directions and two generic hotel keys, together we walked, hand in hand, up the wide carpeted corridor towards the elevator. I'd fallen in step slightly behind Jake, letting the Alpha take the lead. I let my gaze shift to his back, watching as his warm tanned shoulders bunched and rolled as we walked. His muscles called to me.

I resisted the urge to reach out and touch the lines of his body. We'd already held off for so long, both of us teetering on the edge of our self-control. I was sure that if more than just our palms touched we'd lose all sense of that carefully shored up control. As a distraction, I clenched my fist by my side, pinching the side seam of my jeans. I felt the denim shift and tear slightly under my fingers.

I could feel my own lungs heaving, my shoulders bobbing with each breath. My breath came out in shuddering pants. I felt like a coiled up spring waiting for the trigger of release.

Together we waited by the elevator, earning ourselves some sideways glances as we stood there. Jake still had no shirt on, or shoes, and neither of us had had any luggage. I could hear Jacob's heartbeat accelerate as the soft ping announced the elevators arrival and the doors quietly opened. We stepped inside the metal box in unison. With his fingers still laced through mine, he reached over and tapped the button and the doors slid closed.

We stood side by side in the relative silence and privacy of our little moving box. Hearts beating. Bodies yearning. I heard his deep intake of breath and looked over to see his eyes close as his features relax. He breathed deeply some more, his shoulders softened and his head leaned back against the silver mirror behinds us in a sensual tranquility. It was a mask for his pent up desire.

I could taste and sense his growing desire. It pulsed and quivered through our bond. As if sensing my study, his eyes opened and locked with mine. He turned to me, pulling me in closer against his front. He wiped his tongue over his lips and his throat squelched as he swallowed.

His fingers dropped from mine and he brought both large, hot hands up to hold my face. The slight compression pressed my cheeks and lips in to a pout. His eyes were crazed, focused and yet far way. The ancient wolf was struggling to break free.

His hands tremored as his lips parted and a deep rumbling growl rose from his broad chest. "Do you know how good you smell Nessie?" His voice had a desperate edge to it, it was rough and deep. "It's so concentrated in here, and in the car." He looked around briefly to the box we were standing in as it made its way to the third floor. "This little space is killing me."

I nodded, then gave control to his hands. My head tilted up as my chest melted somewhat into his. I understood. I'd felt the same. His control in the face of such desperation turned me on even more. "I love you," I whispered, forcing my emotions to rule over my instincts. I wanted him to take me here against the elevator wall.

My hands reached up, gripping light yet surely over his wrists that were holding me steadfast. _I need you Jake_.

I looked deeper into Jacobs's eyes. The darkness of his pupils dilated to almost the entirety of his iris. There was a wildness in his eyes. And again the ancient depth I now recognized as the wolf inside. It might have been wild, but it was now a familiar wildness all the same. This was my mate. In all his forms.

With a subtle rumble in his chest, his lips crushed against mine. The heat and pressure shifted me back. He trapped my body against the cool metal wall and my head smacked back against the mirror behind me, cracking the glass in a spider web pattern with a sharp splintering blow. Neither of us noticed until the next day.

Finally, the spring coil released.

Our strength of will had expired.

His palms traveled over the lines of my body. His large hands hoisted me up before he pressed me further against the wall and I wrapped my legs around his hips. He let out a rough, gluteal growl into my mouth as I did.

The elevator arrived at our level, another soft ding indicating our floor as the doors slipped open with a swoosh. Jacob stepped backwards, carrying me along the corridor, crashing into potted plants and knocking the artwork on the walls askew. His hands fanned over my ass and my legs held tight around his waist as our lips continued to kiss. We blindly found our way to our room.

Pressed against the entry door, his hips bucked into mine. My breath let out a wanton moan as I felt his heat and hardness press against me. Holding me with one hand he reached into his back pocket, fumbling with the room key as I continued to hold on for dear life. My hands combed through his hair, my nails scratching long, demanding lines down his back.

His lips pulled away from me. His attention momentarily distracted by the electronic key. I let myself slide down his front, my body waving over his bulges, molding and pleasing as I slid. He relaxed his tight hold on my hips as he let my feet touch the ground lightly. My free hands continued to trace over his back, rolling up and over his shoulders and back down his chest. Silently, we hovered over the lock, my focus divided between appreciating the self-restraint needed to concentrate long enough to insert the card and just how spectacular he looked with his muscle primed and ready to spring.

Our shared breath was panting, my lips brushed lightly over his deltoids as I leaned sideways into him, my breasts pressed either side of his thick, athletic arm. His hand tremored as he held the card steady. With the patience of a saint he slowly inserted the card before he removed it with the liberating double beep and a flash of green of the door unlocking.

There was a defined click as his strong hand pressed the handle down and the door swung open. In the dim light of the suite, I saw the sitting room and somewhere beyond that, the bedroom.

We were never destined to get that far.

With a feral snarl, I shoved him into the suite. The door was left swinging as I pressed my body against him. He stumbled back against the wall, his hands everywhere, his lips devouring mine.

My hands slid down his abdomen, my fingers undulated over his definition. I wanted more though, I needed to feel his hot phallus in my hands. My fingers reached for his fly, in my frenzy I struggled to slide the button, finally, too frustrated to care, I tore the denim in two.

His thick need sprung free, bobbing like a submarine breaking the water and settling on the surface. My hand wrapped around his smooth skin and, gripping firmly, I tugged back. I marveled at the heat and smoothness of his shaft. I marveled at the dichotomy of his rigid, brutal muscle surrounded by the velvety softness of his skin.

I needed him inside me immediately.

Jacob took my lead, tearing my shirt from the back, the straps of my bra snapped between his hungry fingers. He arched down, his searing mouth wrapped around a nipple before he sucked hard.

My body effervesced. A spiraling surge of bliss slowly vibrated through my chest and between my legs. With his lips still sucking and drawing at my breasts, his fingers curled over the waist of my jeans and tore down the long outer seam I'd already weakened minutes earlier. There was nothing but the sounds of tearing material and heated needy pants coming from our room. His hands curved around my bottom and I jumped up in to his arms again. The fragile lace of my panties was the last to go; like tissue paper between the pads of his fingers it tore away and finally… we were skin to skin. No barriers. Two becoming one.

My mate.

We wasted no time with any kind of lead-up. We'd already had the past hour of repressed desire to warm us up. His hand lifted me as I wrapped my arms and legs around him. I tilted my hips as his straining penis entered me in in one long, clean thrust.

As we finally came together, we both let out a long drawn out sigh, All of our pent up frustrations relaxing and unwinding, only to feel the slow and steady buildup of our climax as he began to move within me.

I wrapped my arms around his thick neck, pulling my hips into his as he started to thrust in a rhythmic drive. Our faces pressed together; our temples, our cheeks, our jaws pushing hard and hot; his breath was sultry against my throat as we moved as one. Over and over he slid in and out.

With a single step, Jacob moved away from the wall. Standing in the middle of the king suite lounge he ravished me. His supernatural strength easily held me up as he pounded over and over. Again and again he slammed into my waiting heat.

It didn't take very long for us to both reach our peak. The coiled spring had been released and the kinetic energy transferred into the highest climax of my short life.

I could feel our bond throb, my entire body and soul had become consumed in the sensation.

Like a gun leaving its barrel, I exploded. A cascade of pure ecstasy coursed through me as I threw my head back, my mouth going wide as a trill scream of euphoria left my throat.

Jake was only a split second behind me. I felt his final thrust and heat consume me from the inside out as he emptied his hot, molten seed deep within me.

His mouth clamped down over my shoulder as he marked me again.

His teeth sliced though my skin, clamping down as the walls of my vagina clamped in response, causing a second soul altering orgasm to pulse though me again.

Spent and finally satisfied for the moment, we bumped and jounced together as he sunk down onto to his knees. With his penis still buried deep inside of me, we clung to one another, panting and overcome. Two souls had combined as one.

Mating at its finest.

.

* * *

.

It was a rare occasion that I thanked the spirits for giving me my wolf, but I was thanking them today. I sat back on my heels, Nessie's little body came with me and her arms draped over my shoulders as I basked in the sheer perfection of it all. A mere mortal would have died from that orgasm.

I'd kept the wolf at bay and stopped his from following through with his matting instincts for so long on our way to this hotel, that when I'd finally let him loose, he'd taken and claimed his mate with a savagery that rivaled a vampiric battle. Only it hadn't been violent. Instead it was erotic and hedonistic. We'd mated.

After a few seconds of rest, savoring the high, I stood with my dick still firmly inside her wet, hot heat as she wrapped around me. I moved a handful of steps into the bedroom of our suite and, keeping one hand on her ass to hold her pussy tight around me, I pulled the covers back. Shifting her hips, and letting her knees hit the bed, our bodies separated.

A small, incoherent whimper escaped her lips as we disconnected. I think she'd fallen into some kind of incoherent post-mating haze. I felt a little swell of pride as I looked down at her closed lavender lids. Then to her lips, swollen and red. They were slightly parted, relaxed and completely contented.

I'd done that to her.

I bent down, pressing my lips to hers, a warm flutter of belonging surged thought me. The wolf inside purred in satisfaction. He'd finally stopped pulling on his leash, fighting the man and Alpha for dominance. He was content. Our mate had willingly and enthusiastically taken our seed.

Whispering against her swollen lips, I said, "I love you Ness."

Too satisfied to speak, she mumbled a grunt of agreement in reply, a garbled "Iloveyoutoo," was slurred back at me.

She relaxed back from my chest, her body falling gracefully to the side as, like choreography performed by two well-rehearsed dancers, we slid into bed together, our limbs moving in sync, our skin touching and rubbing in every conceivable spot.

We lay together, spooning for ages. The concept of time and responsibilities completely obliterated from my mind.

She lay her head on my arm, pressing her ass into my slowly deflating full salute. With my free hand I ran my fingers over her skin, just enjoying the feel of her skin against mine, the rise and fall of her ribs as she breathed in rest. The back of my knuckles gently skimmed over her shoulder and round the side of her breast. My palms smoothed down into the dip of her waist and then raised up as her feminine hips swelled into her perfect ass and tapered down into to her legs.

My Ness fitted perfectly against my body, she was tall, close to six foot. Her long toned legs gave her enough height to sit comfortably against my six-seven. And they had looked spectacular wrapped naked around my waist. And not just her legs, but all of her. She really was a spectacularly beautiful woman. And she was all mine, Chosen by the spirits just for me.

Mine.

The light was filtering though the semi-translucent curtains, the hot Californian sun set a gilded shadow over the bed as it highlighted Ness's skin with a golden glow.

I rested my head behind her, closing my eyes as the steady beat of our synchronized hearts filled the room. Our breaths were regular and relaxed. Our bond thumped out its steady hum of imprint as my chest pressed in to her back.

I leant my face sideways a little, inhaling her intoxicating scent over the broken skin of the mark I'd left on her. The floral female musk of my mate spoke directly to the animal.

She was woman.

She was mine.

.

As I once again, breathed her in, I couldn't hold in the contented growl that thundered through my chest. It was deep and rumbly. It reverberated through my chest, into hers and around us both in a blanket of animalistic, yet loving vibration. Ness seemed to like it. She settled further against me, her head thrown back to give my lips better access to the side of her neck. She liked the wolf. She liked the growls. She liked me.

"Mine," I whispered, the heat of my breath tickling the shell of her ear.

Her long, slender arm reached behind, seeking me out. Her hand found mine and our fingers entangled together.

_Yours, _she said in my thoughts as she shuffled on the bed to turn to face me. The outline of her breast and nipples cut through the afternoon sun, like the sunset over a mountain peak, my eyes were drawn to the hardened summit. I followed the line of her chest, tracing my eyes up her chest and along her smooth throat before roving over her face and settling, sure and steadily in to her deep, soul filled eyes.

.

She turned more, until her body faced mine. Stretched out along me, she pressed her soft thighs against mine. She arched her back and her stomach molded against my six-pack. Her beasts squished and dragged over the rise of my pecs. Her head lifted, and her lips hovered over mine. Her lips tingled and teased as we shared breath and body and soul.

We were skin to skin; heart to heart; eye to eye; soul to soul.

Mates.

Lovers.

Imprints.

Ours.

Her arm moved up between us and she placed a warm loving hand above my heart. Her eyes were beautiful and open as they emblazed into my heart.

_Make me yours again._

* * *

**That's it boys and girls... Until I finish writing the epilogue.**

**But it's school break time for the next two weeks here in Australia, and we're going camping this week. So ya'll are gunna have to wait a week or two for the nice rounded finish to this ditty.**

**But it will come. You guys know I'm good for it. I never leave a story incomplete.**

**Thank you all so much for your lovely reviews. I haven't gotten back to a few people this week, it's been hectic and I chose to finish off this chapter instead. I think that's a _way_ better deal ;-D**

**Thanks to Aretee for your beta skills. You know you rock.**

**Review you thoughts, I love to get them. I hope most of you are happy with how the story went. I've had lots of ideas and suggestions thrown at me by excited readers, and they were all great ideas, but I just couldn't see this being a long story. It was just a tart one shot lemon that I decided to expand on. Now it's a kind of tart, kind of angst, impulse driven love story, nine chapter lemon instead.**

**I seriously have the best readers in the fanfic kingdom, (at lest that what I think) thanks for your kind words and support. **

**Thanks for reading. ****xoxox**

**Marina**


	9. Chapter 9: Epilogue

**Welcome all, to the final chapter of this little story. I'd like to make reference to the Quileute people, and thank them for there tradition and language and for allowing us all to— hopefully— not decimate or insult their culture with our fictional writing. My respects.**

**Thanks Aretee for the quick Beta. **

**Hope you all like what I've done. Thanks for all the lovely reviews.**

**You're all terrific.**

**H****ugs, MarinaNamaste.**

**.**

* * *

**.**

**Chapter 9 Epilogue.**

The sharp rocks dug into the back of his legs as he hung them over the cliff face. They freely swung, his heel occasionally kicking into the sandstone ledge below.

He was south of the reservation, just on the edge of his peoples' lands. The small rocky outcrop marked the edge of the treaty lines between the protectors and the cold ones. This was a place they all could freely visit. The forest and the beach on this little mile stretch of coast land was neutral ground. He'd made it so only last week.

"She's asleep," she said quietly as she came to sit next to him, close but not touching. His wolf still couldn't tolerate her cold, hard skin. It burnt like ice and her scent was far too strong and caustic.

Bella had learnt to sit downwind of Jacob over the past few weeks. They were both trying, but the animalistic and physical disposition of their different natures were harder to overcome than they'd originally thought.

To put it bluntly, they stunk.

.

He looked over to his old friend, her hair was damp and strands were beginning to become plastered to her white skin as the mist rained down over them both. "Did you tell her that I said I loved her?"

"Yes Jake, I told her, and I gave her the letter, and the gift," she smiled, shaking her head at the boy she once knew. Now he was a man and, as of tomorrow –weirdly so— about to be her son-in-law.

"Was it a good party?" He wanted Ness to have the best of everything, and all that she wanted; and she'd wanted all the women in her life, pale and tan, mortal and immortal, to be in attendance.

Bella shrugged, lifting her shoulder, "Yeah, you know how Alice is. Over the top. Renesmee is used to all the fanfare. I just think she was missing you too much to really get into it. But the other imprints all seemed to have a great time. I think Kim is going to have a headache tomorrow. Too much Champagne and not enough orange juice in the mimosas."

Jake chuckled, nodding. Jared's imprint was well known for her free spirit when she had a night out, especially now that they had two kids and the nights out were far and few between.

.

After their adventures in California, Jake had brought Nessie back to La Push the following day. It had been no surprise to Jacob that Ness was immediately accepted into the pack fold. His family and his friends had all welcomed her warmly.

She'd fallen in love, too, with the home that Jacob had built with his own two hands a few years earlier. At the time, he'd simply thought he was building a private home on the outskirts of the reservation's township. He hadn't thought of its proximity to the boundary lines; it was only a short trip to his imprint's family home. It was ideally located. She loved the design, the colors, the hominess of the Alpha's house. Without knowing it, he'd built _their_ home; it was not only to his taste but to his future imprint's, too.

Years before he'd laid eyes on his imprint, years before his soul was irrevocably bonded to hers, his heart had known she was out there, and he'd built her a den. They'd both taken it as a sign from the gods of fate. That, and also just how blissfully happy they were at each other's side.

.

Bella and Jacob sat in silence for a few more minutes, neither having much nor knowing what to say.

"I…" Bella paused as she decided how best to start, her fine porcelain fingers twisting together, "Jake, I just… I just want you to know that I'm really happy for you. And, putting aside that Nessie is my daughter, I'm just happy for you, my oldest friend; that you've found someone to share your life with."

Jacob sat silent on the cliff of his home lands. His eyes flicked over to hers, and then back out to the stormy sea below them. He didn't much care what she thought or how she felt these days. He didn't need to know Bella's feelings on the matter. His happiness wasn't tied to hers in any way. He was happy without his old friend's closeness. He was happy now. Happier and more content than he'd ever been in his entire life, and it was all owing to the woman apparently sleeping in his bed, in their home a mile and half back towards the township. Ness made up for the years of hurt and unrest. She'd more than made up for it, she super seceded it. She took his life to new plains of existence. She was his true equal and his other half. She made life good… No. She made it _great_.

He didn't need Bella's apologies or her amity, but he'd let her say her piece, for Ness, and for the sake of peace.

Bella drew in a breath through her nose, her shoulders rising before she continued. "Everything that happened— back after Victoria and the new born fight— it's haunted me, Jake," she said, turning to him and balancing, unnaturally so, on the rocks' edge. "I don't know why I was so selfish or why I strung you along like that. I used you and I tossed you aside. And I just wanted to say… I'm sorry." Her tingly, bell voice cracked at the apology, unshed tears brimmed at her eyelids.

"And I don't deserve you to let me back in to your life, but I'm glad that you have, and… I don't know if you're just putting up with us—with me— because of Renesmee, or if it's because you really are the warmest, most beautiful soul I've ever met. But I'm grateful, Jake. I've grateful for the chance to redeem myself and I'm grateful that I can have you back in my life."

Jacob leaned back, his palms pressing into the rocks with his arms locked back behind him as he turned his head, regarding his old flame. "S'okay Bells," he whispered, his jaw still a little tight. This was his old friend… but then again… in wasn't. "I figured out why I was so obsessed, why I couldn't accept you'd really gone."

He closed his eyes for a moment, smiling and snuffling a little contented chuff before opening his eyes again. The deep, dark, cocoa color of his soul was happy and content. "It was Ness. It was always Ness. Even before she was born, even before I'd first phased. When we were in the shed and I'd look up and see you biting your lip and all I'd want to do was kiss it. It wasn't you I was in love with, it was her. It was the promise of her in you that had me chasing you. But it was her."

.

He watched her face as his honest and blunt words processed over her features. He didn't think she liked his appraisal of their history, but Jake did. It made sense to him. It made all the craziness make sense and the stars align, or some shit like that.

A little frown line appeared on her brow and her lips tighten at the notion that he'd never really had any true feelings for her. That it had only been the mysterious pull of the forthcoming imprint. That hurt her deeper than she thought she had a right to feel. Bella liked to think she'd had some part in the happiness he'd seemed to have around her. She knew she'd been the cause of his unhappiness though. No one denied that.

He'd been such a happy kid before he'd phased. Bella remembered the white, bright, wide smile that she'd known all those years ago. The amount of smiling she'd seen from him after he'd joined the pack and in the weeks leading up to her wedding before he'd vanished had been all but nil. If she was being honest, even though the hazy recall of her human eyes, every time they'd seen each other back then, there'd been some strain—and a lot less smiling.

He seemed to smile a lot more these days. It seemed to Bella that he'd not stopped smiling since he'd imprinted on her daughter. She made him happier than he'd been in long, long time.

He was smiling now, it reminded her of the Jake she used to know, the boy in his father's garage as they'd built those bikes. Warm sodas and a warm, sunny smiles. Even more. Even happier. And it had nothing to do with Bella Swan-Cullen.

That sunny smile reminded the woman of the friendship that they'd built. It was a far cry from the alpha wolf who was sitting there next to her, a mien of forced tolerance in his eye when he looked at her. It saddened Bella that it had to be like this between them.

"But it wasn't _always_ about love and that kind of stuff, Jake. You really were my best friend. Are you telling me all that time was just the future imprint?" she asked her brows high as she turned leaning in closer. "I don't buy that. You were by best friend through the toughest time in my life. You brought me back to life, Jake. Wolf and imprint, or not. That was you; that was _us_. That was Jake and Bells."

"I suppose," he whispered, as he flung a cool, sharp rock out and over the cliffs. The picked up another pebble, rolling it between his fingers, letting the warm, round smoothness encourage him. It reminded him of the smoothness of Nessie's skin. "But I think, maybe, the friendship got muddled up with Nessie's pull. Maybe in another life we'd still have been best of friends. But…" he shifted, pulling his legs up from the rock edge and swiveling as he brought his feet under him, making to stand up, "that's not the life we're living though, is it?" he said, raising on to the balls of his feet as he stood, sliding the smooth pebble into his pant pocket.

"Well, why can't we be still?" she asked, coming up on to her knees, the denim of her jeans sloshing in the damp soil. "Forgive me Jake," she pleaded, "not for Renesmee's sake but for ours." She reached a hand up poking him lightly in the leg, "I miss my friend."

She pulled back, with lighting speed and unnatural grace she threw herself down, lying face up along the edge of the rock face, watching each individual droplet of light rain as it fell. A loud a sorrowful sigh escaped her lips, as she looked up over the top of her head at his figure standing over her, "I know I smell like bleach and I'm cold and your mortal enemy and all, but can't we be friends again? At least be something better than this polite roundabout we've been dancing on these past few weeks."

.

Jacob stood still, looming over the vampire who was laying so vulnerably at his feet. The urge to snap down and tear his mortal enemies head off its shoulder teetered in his mind. Then she reached into her pocket and held up a little woven bracelet, a tiny carved wolf figurine attached to the loop. All the emotions of friendship, anguish and unconditional love—minus the lust, came flooding back. "You kept that?" he asked, dropping softly to his knees to take the offered token from her hands.

She dropped it into his palm, "Of course, Jake. I was wearing it when she was born—when my heart stopped beating."

.

With a long whooshing out of breath, Jacob lay himself down on the wet soil, his shirt instantly soaked and cool as he shifted so that they were head to head. His legs stretched out towards the north, in opposite to Bella's. They weren't touching as they lay in the rainy dirt; it was a completely platonic arrangement. The wolf found it difficult to be trusting enough to be somewhat venerable next to a vampire, but the man understood that the cold one was a vegetarian and friendly one. All the wolf cared about was that she was still a Vamp.

They lay there, on the edge of the cliff, head to head, their temples side by side for several minutes. His fingers rolled over the angles of the wolf he'd lovingly carved all those years ago.

Jacob looked up to the clouds above. They were swirling and shifting in the heavy wind. The rain was still only falling in a fine but constant spray that his body heat caused to evaporate within seconds after it misted across his face. None the less, both of them were beginning to get soaked through.

He stretched his neck and looked up, meeting his old friend's eyes. "I miss my friend too," he said into the silence of the storm.

His arm reached up and his finger flicked hard against her nose. The hardness of her granite nose smarted his finger, but he didn't show it.

"So were friends again?" she asked, still lying in the mud, looking up at him through her lashes.

"Yeah Bells," he nodded his tone somewhat patronizing at her apparent desperation, "friends."

.

Her perfect smile broke though and her razor like teeth flashed in the dark and cloudy moonlight. She reached her hand up, brushing it along the ground they were lying on and silently asking to hold his.

"Friends don't hold hands Bells," he said, his hands still lightly draped over his stomach and chest as he fondled the miniature carving. His fingers moved down the leather band and smoothing over the cool, clear diamond on the opposite side.

"We used to," she reminded him.

"That was the promise of the imprint muddling it up. And before… everything."

"Oh. Right." Her hand crept back to her side.

.

They were silent for a little longer. The winds began to buffet over the cliff, hitting them with the promise of the storm that was approaching.

"It's not just the smell, you know," he said out of the blue, responding to her heartfelt address from earlier. "It's more, Bella. It's the fact that no matter who you are to Ness, or who you _were_ to me, you chose _them_ over your humanity."

Jacob stared up at the sky above him, his sharper eyesight allowing him to see the tiny droplets of rain as they began to fall. As he stared at the clouds above though, all he saw was the memory of the council meeting he'd had with the elders the day after he'd returned with Ness. The pleas from his pack brothers—the ones with children— begging him to consider their sons and the life they all wanted –and didn't want— for them. And then, centered in his mind's eye as the droplets of rain fell down from the sky, was the image of his cousin, Isaac as he'd phased only three days earlier. His Aunt Nora's pleas for him let her son be the last. He'd promised to the council, to his brothers and to his family that even though Isaac Yazzie was the first in almost seven years, he was also going to be the last for many, many more.

"You can't stay in Forks indefinitely, Bella. You can visit. But you can't live in the area forever. The council is worried what your presence is gunna keep the gene active and I think their right. I've accepted what I've become, and I've even embraced it now that I have Nessie. But I don't want this life for the kids here. They deserve the childhood my pack and I never had the opportunity to have."

"But you promised Edward we'd be welcomed," an uneasy sadness to her tone.

He cut her off, "I promised Edward that the pack would abide by any treaty I put in place. And that I won't stop you if you move back. I never said you'd be welcomed. And I never said forever."

.

"Only till my heart stops beating, hey Jake?"

"Something like that," a mix of bitterness and mirth in his tone.

The rain started to fall heavier, large crystal blobs falling onto his face and pooling in his closed eyes.

"I mean it Bells, I have to look after my pack, my tribe, my family; you can't stay here."

"I thought Renesmee was your family now."

"She is." His statement was flat and final.

"But—"

"No buts. She is. The pack and the tribe are just a very close second. And I'm sorry Bells, but you and your kind are bad news for my tribe and the kids with the gene."

Bella was quiet for a moment, the fingers of each hand crossed together as she pressed her joined fist against her mouth. "When do you want us gone by?"

"A few more months. Maybe you could come and go. We'll come visit you," he relented. He knew how much Ness would want to see her mother, and her father.

Bella laughed, "I somehow doubt you could stand the smell of—how do you say it? Bloodsucker stench—inside our collective home."

"We'll stay in a hotel," he answered dryly.

She turned onto her side, twisting her neck so to look into her friend's eyes in earnest. "Don't worry Jake, we'll figure something out."

He nodded a little, pressing his lips together in a straight line. The Alpha was trying hard to remain aloof and cool, but the man; the friend, and the boy he'd once been, he was happy to see the compromise from his old friend… his imprint's mother.

Ness.

.

Just the thought of her lifted his spirit, the bond between them pulsing in serenity.

"She's pregnant," he said, unable to hide the delight from his tone.

Bella rolled back onto her posterior. Then she paused, lying statue still along the cliff's edge as she processed the news. Jake wished he could see her face to gauge her reaction, not that her opinion mattered anymore, but Ness would want to know.

"I thought as much," she answered eventually, an impartiality in her voice. "She looks rounder already. You're not worried that she's going to cause more phasing too? She's _half_ cold one too, you know." There was an inflection to her voice that Jacob didn't appreciate. As understanding and apparently condoning of his new relationship with her daughter Bella had been, every now and then he'd noticed a slightly different glint to her voice. He couldn't figure out if it was a jealous, passive aggressiveness from his old friend or a worried maternal protectiveness.

"I know her _breeding_ Bella, and I'm confident that it won't cause new kids to phase," he answered firmly.

"But what if it does? Will the council make her leave?" her voice had risen an octave, the pitch was sharp and painful to his ears, Vamp octave. "That would kill her, Jake. They couldn't send her away from you could they? She's so happy here."

Worried maternal protectiveness.

"It won't. But if it does, like you said, we'll figure something out. We'll both leave. Nothing will separate me from her, Bella. _Nothing._" He looked up to the top of her head, a cheeky smirk forming on his lips. "If Edward couldn't do it, what chance do the old farts on the tribal council have?"

She chuckled with a sense of nostalgia, somethings never change. "And apparently the old farts have got nothing on our bloodsucker stench."

Jake scoffed, the ridiculously lame humor of his old friend apparently unchanged over her transformation. The transformation that killed her, after she had a baby. A baby, like his Ness was having.

.

"Ness says you died fighting for her?" he asked, licking his lips which were suddenly very dry.

Bella nodded quietly answering, "My human body was too weak for what she needed. She just needed too much, too quickly. I couldn't keep up."

Jacob felt himself filled with anxiety. He couldn't lose her. All at once his breath felt like sharp stabbing knives of air beginning to heave in and out of his chest. What if carrying his baby killed her?

"Jake don't get worked up," Bella said, hearing his heart and breathing accelerate. "Ness is immortal. She might have a heartbeat but it's stronger than any mere humans. Certainly much stronger than mine was."

He nodded to himself, "She's growing fast but, from what Nessie says, it's way slower than yours was," he added, using his sense of reasoning to try and calm himself.

.

"Carlisle learned a lot with my pregnancy. We'll know how to preempt certain issues. She'll have your strength… and your support," she added quietly." Jake looked at her curiously.

"Of course she's got my support, I love Ness unconditionally and any child we have is a representation of that love."

Bella smiled at her old friend, at his purity and his loyalty too. "She's lucky to have you Jake, to have your support, unconditionally."

Jake half turned in the dirt, lifting his head to look closer at her, "What are you saying Bells?"

She looked up at him, a regretful sadness in her eye, "Edward and I didn't always see eye to eye when we first found out I was pregnant. He wanted it out of me. I wanted her life."

Jacob found himself start to shake. He was incensed at the mere suggestion of his imprint not existing. Edward and he had come to an amicable truce over the past several weeks. But there was too much bad blood between them, there would never be a friendship between the would-be father and son. It was stories like this that set Jake's teeth on edge. It made him angry all over again. It made him forget for a moment what had turned his life the right way round and brought light and sunshine and love to his heart again.

Ness.

"Be calm, Jake," Bella soothed, instinctively knowing the rage building in her friend. "We didn't see eye to eye, but only at first. I fought for her, and eventually, when Edward could begin to read her mind and see how warm and caring she was, he fell in love with her too." The smile and floating look on Bella's face reminded Jake of his own these past few weeks. Ness did that to people, there was no resisting her perfection.

"He's been in love with her from that moment on. Now you won't find a better champion for her life than Edward… accept maybe for me," she smirked her shoulder lifting.

"And me." Jake added. He knew there was no one who loved Ness more than him. He'd win that title, hands down, any day of the week. His love was unparalleled.

"Yeah," she replied, a small snuff of incredulity at the tangled web her life had now become, "and you."

.

He sat, leaning to one side as he looked over Bella as she still lay on the rock face, "Did you really have to die to have her?" he asked, the real fear rising back to the surface.

She bit into her lip, a memory of that time flashing through her now much sharper and much sturdier mind. "I did," she said softly, "but I was human Jake, remember that. I didn't have enough blood, enough protein in my diet, that's what she needed. And we waited too long, too. My body simply wasn't robust enough, my human heart couldn't take it any longer." She said, tapping over the spot where her human heart once beat; she taped over the spot her heart beat its last beat to bring her child into this world. His Ness.

"But Renesmee is different," Bella continued, "she's strong, she can hunt for herself, her heart is so much more resilient, and anyway, this baby won't be as demanding. Don't forget this puppy will only be _one quarter_ vampire," she smirked, raising an eye brow and lifting their potentially macabre conversation.

Jake plonked himself back down on to the muddy dirt as he laughed out loud, a full bellied laugh that echoed down the cliff face. "That's right, I don't know why I didn't think of that before," he chuckled. "My children are going to be one quarter vampire." He smirked at the absurdity of it all as his hands found his face and rubbed the water from his eyes.

"And half dog," Bella arched her eyebrow.

"Hey," he feigned insult, tugging on a lock of her hair that was wet and muddied and just happened to be lying by his hand, "the wolf is only a _part_ of me. Only like… half."

"Then your kids will be like… a quarter wolf," she mocked back, taking the dirty lock and tucking it behind her ear.

"Damn right they will be." He nodded to himself, the notion of one day being able to teach his own sons to control their wolf was an appealing one. He knew there'd be no chance of his cubs avoiding the phase.

.

Bella sat up, her leather jacket and most of her hair caked with the silty mud she's been lying on. "I'm going to be a grandmother… to _your_ kids."

Jacob sat up then too. Both of them laughing, a healthy release to the pent up strain they'd both been holding on to. "If you told that long haired kid who was trying to impress you with stupid scary stories all those years ago…." he snorted quietly, his head down as he drew Nessie's name in the dirt with his finger. "When they look back on the family tree, our kids', kids', kids are gunna be so freaked out."

"Especially if you're still there to explain it all and you still look the same as you do today," she reminded.

He folded his hands in his lap and leaned to the side, nudging Bella lightly, "we're one fucked up family, hey _mom_?"

"Don't you dare," she pointed a playfully threating finger at him.

"Why not? In just a few hours, you're gunna be my mother, by law at least." His smile was light and easy and lopsided. It hinted of the boy that was still there under all the bulk and muscle and responsibility.

Bella simply shook her head, a nasally chuckle escaping her closed lips.

.

"Speaking of a few hours' time," she said suddenly, sucking in a re-setting breath, "I'd better be getting home. I'm sure Alice has some kind of last minute thing I have to help with." Bella rose, gracefully unfolding as she stood on the edge of the cliff face.

She leaned down, brushing Jake's short hair back before pressing a cold yet motherly kiss to his forehead.

"See you at the wedding… _son_," she winked. Then she straightened with a snigger before stepping off the ledge and diving head first into the turbulent waters below. The creature who had just leaped off the rocks was strong and confident, cheeky even… and nothing more than a friend. It was a new Bella. One who he was going to have to get to know all over again. Jacob didn't mind the prospect, this new Bella had more sass, more gumption and gallons more grace.

Jake watched as she disappeared into the dark ocean, barely a splash to indicate the site of impact. He was reminded of a very different, very human girl who'd once jumped off the same cliff face only a few miles up the coast, years and years ago. That Bella had broken his heart that very day, and that dive had painted the beginning of the end.

Or so he'd thought.

It had taken him years, and what had seemed like a life time of hurt, but finally he'd found his light, his salvation. His Ness.

.

He felt his chest ache and pull a little as he thought of their enforced separation.

Twelve hours. They were meant to spend twelve measly hours apart, it had already been three, but he couldn't do it. He need her touch and her presence.

He ached without her.

Damn tradition, he needed to see her; hold her; feel her.

Stuffing the leather braided bracelet in his pocket, next to the pebble, he turned, setting into a trot towards his house.

He was gunna go see his mate.

.

* * *

.

On two feet, he jogged back up the trail head, cutting though the forest at speeds only non-humans could attain with such ease.

The house came into view and his eyes searched over the familiar home. His heart pulsed at the sense of calm being here gave him. His eyes traced over the walls. They were wooded, made from the cedars that dotted the surrounding forest. He looked up to the soft light coming from the main bedroom window and his chest pulsed again.

There was a balcony wrapping around two sides of the house, with small pots of flowers she's added recently to the sills. His bare feet strode up the two steps to the porch, the warmth of the smooth planed wood settled up his body, so too did the sound of her heartbeat as he listened thought the walls. He wiped his feet quickly on the welcome mat she bought for them last week, every home needed one she'd said. His placed his hand on the door handle, quietly turning it and letting himself in.

The house was dark, but he could see his way with ease. Silently he peeled his shirt and then his shorts off at the bottom of the stairs. He used the dry part of the cloth to wipe his arms and then his shins clean before, with a light foot, he climbed the steps naked, pausing in the hallway just outside their room. He rested his forehead lightly on the door frame as his eyes searched through the half ajar door of their bedroom.

She'd left the dresser lamp on. His eyes traveled over to the bed in the center of the room, it was large and sturdy and built with his own two hands. He looked over the covers to where she was bundled up under the thick feather downed bedspread. She always complained of being cold without him by her side. All he could see was her outline under the white and lace embroidered quilt and her mass of brown-red curls spilling across the pillow.

.

He closed his eyes, and for a moment, listened. He listened to the sound of her shifting in her sleep, the sound of her breathing, the steady flutter of her heart and the faint yet strong and distinct quiver of the heart growing inside her.

He stood from the door frame, his skin tacky against the oiled timber. Closing the few short feet into the room, he slipped into the warm bed and pressed himself next to his mate sleeping soundly on her side.

He shuffled closer, wrapping a strong arm over her waist, spooning behind her. His hand splayed over her stomach, marveling at the hard little ball already growing within her. His face buried into the curls spiraling over her shoulder.

He inhaled and his lungs filled with her intoxicating sweet sent. She was even sweeter now; a creamy, milky sent mixed with her natural honeyed one. Like the luscious sweetened syrup of condensed milk—the scent of his mate with child. His chest pulsed, their bond palpitating and warming.

Her shoulders rose, brushing the soft silk of her nightie against his chin. "Jake," she whispered, her voice thick with sleep but with a hint of smile. She breathed deeply as she pressed her back into him. "Your sister's going to be annoyed you've snuck in," she yawned.

"Don't care. I needed to be near you," he said as he scooped her hair off her shoulder. His lips gently kissed along the skin of her throat as he nuzzled the strap of her chemise back and his tongue poked out to lap at the her crescent shaped scar on her shoulder.

The touch of her skin on his lips, the pulse of harmony he felt with her in his arms; it all settled on him like a warm, feathered quilt, much like the one they were lying under now. It encompassed their love. He didn't know why he even _tried_ to stand being away from her loving embrace—even for twelve hours.

.

"I spoke to her for you," he whispered, his hand making circles over their child.

"I can smell her. Thank you, sweetheart"

"We're friends again. Apparently."

She turned, shuffling so that she was in his arms. She bent her knees up and tucked herself up into a ball, like a chrysalis that was held dear in his cocooning arms. Her hands rubbed gently against his chest as she lent her head on his shoulder and his arms held her closer.

"I know you had your reservations, Jake but everything will be so much easier now. She needed time to process and plan what they're going to do. Besides, it was killing me seeing you two tip toe around one another."

"We weren't _tip toeing,_" he defended.

She lifted her head, kissing the base of his throat. "Yes you were," she chuckled, "I could see it in her eyes and I could feel it beating out of you sweetie. You wanted to reconnect, you both just didn't know where to start."

.

He leaned back, looking down so that his eyes could meet Renesmee's. "You know that any relationship I have with your mother is strictly platonic, right? There is no _re-connecting._" The mere mention of any kind of physical relationship with Bella was a repulsive one. "There never was and there never will be."

She chuckled into the soft darkness. "I know, that's not what I meant. I meant friendship."

"Good. Because you have to believe me when I say there's nothing there, Ness. Nothing." He shifted further back, bringing both his palms to capture her face, making sure she could see the conviction in his eyes. "I know it was the imprint that brought us together, but I swear to the gods Nessie, even without the imprint I'd still be in love with you, and _only_ you. It just made me stand up and take immediate notice."

She unwound from her quiescent ball. Her long legs slid down the length of his as her feet wrapped around his shins. Her hands splayed over his chest as the tips of her index fingers flicked his nipples back and forth. "And then the imprinted wolf made you take me home and ravish me over and over until we had our first pup growing," her tiny, firm ball of tummy pressed into his, for emphasis.

His hand slipped over the curve of her side, the heel of his hand slid back and forth along her stomach before his palm slipped behind, circling the soft roundness of her bottom. The satin of her nightie glided along her already perfect skin.

_Perfection_, he thought to himself.

.

"Yeah," he rumbled, his hard erection pressing into the soft curls behind her cotton panties. "But I mean it; you're prefect baby. You're smart and you're kind, and you're beautiful." His hips jerked into hers as he pulled her closer with a firm hand on her ass, "and hot; so, _sooo_ fucking hot."

She sniggered as her hand reached between them and found his length. Her hand wrapped around it and gently, she pushed back on the tight skin, "you ain't too bad yourself, for a horn dog."

Her innocent yet flirty words brought him back to their original conversation. Bella.

"Mmm," Jake moaned as Ness stroked him. His hands found the edges of her panties as he spoke, "We can't ever have the kind of friendship that we used to have; your mom and me. Both those kids are long gone."

Her free hand came up and wrapped around the side of his jaw, pulling him down for a kiss. She nodded, lifting her side so he could get her panties over her hips and down her tights.

_But you can find a new friendship, hopefully_, she offered. Her fingers traced lines over his clavicles, following the dip and swell of his edges, the other hand still keeping a steady beat on his aroused flesh.

"I suppose."

He pushed her panties as low as he could reach before lifting his foot and using a toe to push them all the way down. He shifted, a jerking motion as he lifted himself on top of her. The hard muscles of his arms tensed as he held himself above. He dipped his head, his lips lowering to press hard against Nessie's.

With an open mouth, they kissed, molding and pressing the softness of lips against the others. His tongue entered her mouth, searching and playing with the lines and ridges of her palate. Her tongue flicked against his and their teeth clicked gently as her lips lifted in a happy and contented smile.

He traveled down her face, kissing the line of her jaw and down the soft scented skin of her throat, "It'll be good to not be so awkward when she visits."

A breathy sigh escaped her lips as his fingers curled over the silk of her nightie and slid it down, off her shoulder.

"And anything that makes you happy, makes me happy," he added as his tongue licked a hot swipe over the crescent mark on her shoulder.

Renesmee felt the cool and passionate chill run over her skin, the touch of the wolf's mark igniting her. His hands found her breast and pulled and squeezed at the hard bud that had arisen. He felt her pleasure as his own, their bond volleying back and forth between their chests.

Her hands curled around his back and pulled him down for more kisses. Her hands explored over his muscles, along the broad muscles of his back and the firm roundness of his buttocks. _You don't need to do anything special to make me happy, _she said, her lips too occupied to speak with. _You make me happy Jake_, _just being you._

_._

She pulled back from their kiss, her eyes soft and hooded, "I love you," she smiled, just the corner of her lips rising up before she pulled the bottom of her lip between her teeth and blinked slowly.

He's not seen anything quite so beautiful and sensual in his entire life. He took a deep, life affirming breath, nodding slightly and a little overcome at the stunning woman beneath him. "I love you too, Ness."

His hand left her breast and slid down, over the silk, to the satin of her skin. He felt his way up her body. He made a long, smooth, open handed caress up the length of the thigh and over the small rise of her tummy. He lifted and moved the cover of her nightie as he went. It bunched, crumpling and gathering just over the tips of her lovely breasts.

She sat, raising her arms so that he could lift it off completely. His eyes met hers, the heat and want smoldering as he took in the attractive curves of her body. She was beautiful.

"I love you so, so much," Jacob said, his voice was deep and catching in the back of his throat with emotion as he kneeled before her.

"Show me," she said, lying back on the pillows, her naked, creamy, luminescent skin glowing in the dim lamp light.

.

* * *

.

The sunlight was beaming through the open windows as they woke in the morning. The pre-wedding couple woke to trill, alarm like song of the Junco in the trees, the distant crash of waves sounding in the distance and the rough drumming of the grouse in the wild undergrowth in the forest outside. The coarse hammering never stopped though, it kept on vibrating, rumbling closer and closer until it transitioned to the deep roar of Paul Lahote's 1964 cherry red Impala coming up the drive.

Jake made a disgruntled moan, squeezing his mate around the middle as he realized who was in it. Rachel. The Chevrolet sports coupe was a special car that Rachel had agreed to let her mate keep, _if_ he promised no to impregnate her with a fourth child. Three was her limit. That had been over a year ago. Paul had agreed, knowing full well that she loved the car and would let him keep it even if they did have a fourth.

Jacob and Ness both heard her groan as she hauled herself out of the low slung bucket seats, her six month's worth of heavy belly explanation for her effort.

Ness curled into Jacob's hard body, resting against him and savoring the last few seconds before they'd be, once again, ripped from each other's arms. They knew the reasons for their separation this time— they welcomed the reasons, but neither really felt the need to follow the ancient tradition of being apart before the big event. They could feel each other's soul from across the county anyway.

"She's going be very annoyed when she realizes you're here," Ness whispered, pressing her cheek back and against Jacob's face that had been leaning on hers. The sharp scratch of his stubble awaking the sleeping animal inside her. She concentrated and pushed the wild she-thing down.

"She's gunna be more shitty when she sees the muddy clothes I dumped at the bottom of the stairs," he chuckled.

She chuckled back with him, happy to be in the moment for ten more seconds. With eyes closed, Ness listened to the steady thud of her mate's heartbeat as it thumped against her back, and the slow and steady rush of his breath as it passed by his lips. She listened as, down stairs her pack sister opened the front door.

"Jacob!" she yelled out. The sound of his wet and soiled clothing from last night being picked up off the floor and thrown into the tub in the laundry out back. "You better not still be here!" she called, her voice echoing to the second floor.

.

They both giggled as they heard the clump up the wooden staircase. "You had to stay away for one measly night," she said, stopping by the door of their bedroom. "I can hear you laughing. It's no laughing matter. You want her to have bags under her eyes because you've kept her up all night bonking?"

"It's never bonking," he called out, his voice gravely from sleep, "and anyway," he sat on the side of the bed, reaching over to fetch a fresh pair of boxer shorts from his side of the drawer, "she's too perfect to ever get bags."

"Oh well fine then," Rachel pouted, pushing open the bedroom door. Her hand was on her hips and her pregnant stomach leading the way, "sorry, but the rest of us mere mortals look like shit if we don't get enough sleep."

Ness sat up then too, the heavy quilt pulled high on her naked chest. "Don't be cross with him Rachel, he could feel me. I needed him with me."

Rachel shook her head in disbelief. "He was horny and lonely, don't bullshit it Ness," she smiled back, a single brow raised. Jake's sister understood, she'd been newly imprinted once too. She still felt her lovers pull. And he still felt hers.

Rachel Lahote turned on her brother then, pointing at his semi-clothed form. "You have exactly five minutes to be gone from this house Jacob Black, or I'm calling the boys to come get you." The Indian princess pulled out her phone, setting the timer for five minutes, no more, no less and she turned to make her way back out.

At the door she pivoted, looking back at Renesmee over her shoulder, "He's right though, you _are_ too perfect. You look beautiful already." With a wink and a smile she left, the door clicking shut with an echoing tick.

.

With a good humored sigh, Renesmee sat up further, searching through the bed sheets for last night's discarded panties. She stood, throwing them in the hamper and making her way to the master bathroom.

"What are you doing?" Jacob asked, striding over to her as she stood naked in the doorway just on the cool tiles.

"Taking a shower," she offered, her eyebrows coming together in question; it seemed obvious to her, "we only have five minutes."

"That's right," he said, his large tanned hands flowing down, over her sides before settling on the feminine swell of her hips. Then with a fast hitch, he lifted her up, wrapping her legs around him as he stepped further into the bathroom, "we have five whole minutes, that's like… a thousand seconds."

"It's three hundred seconds," she giggled as he carried her to the shower stall.

"See," he smiled, reaching one handed to the water mixer, the other holding her by her milky white, soft, round ass. "You are perfect."

.

* * *

.

He knew it was time.

He knew it was time because he could _feel_ it. He could feel _her_. He could feel her nervousness, her excitement. He could feel her love.

They were gathered on the mossy rocked lined bank of the Sol Cuc River. In a clearing that had been made by logger's decades, possibly even centuries ago just as the river took a sharp pin curve around on itself. It was just within the true reservation boundary. Within the neutral ground he'd created with this very circumstance in mind.

Wolves and vampires all in in the one place at the one time, without trying to kill each other.

His wedding day.

.

Rachel had been true to her word, at five minutes and two seconds, she had been at the door of their private bathroom insisting he get the hell out so Ness could get ready.

With a smug smirk to his lips, he'd opened the bathroom door, the steam billowing out as he proceeded to zip his fly and saunter past, fully dressed. "See what you can do with that post-coital glow," he smirked, ducking the clip behind the ear his sibling tried to bestow.

With another, "I love you," shouted adoringly out to his imprint still in the bathroom, Jacob had opened the large bay window on the far side of the room and stood on the sill. "See you soon, wisatsu'upat, kw'opḳalawó∙li," he sung out as Ness ducked her head out the bathroom door, a deep maroon floor length silk robe crisscrossed over her body.

"Xw pá ti'iyahl qahla," she winked back.

The last thing he saw before he'd turned and jumped out the second story window was the grin of pure unadulterated happiness that was splitting across his imprints face.

The last thing he'd heard, was his sister's, "what the hell?" confused and slightly envious query of their private conversation. Then Nessie's, "Jake's been teaching me… I kind of have an eidetic memory." Her sweet laughter at Rachel's bemused expression drifting through the forest as he jogged towards his father's home to get ready himself.

.

That pretty voice and sweet laughter was still echoing around his brain, so too was the way that maroon silk fell in soft folds against her body. But mostly it was her face, that beautiful smile and those eyes that lit up her soul and melted his heart when she looked at him. That was all he'd been able to think about for the past few hours.

It had been _three_ hours, to be exact. It was coming up very quickly to that three-hundredth minute.

Jacob was jostled out of his memories with a harsh unexpected slap on the back. "Come on dude," Quill sniggered. "I can practically smell your anxiety from across the field, and that's _with_ all the vampire stink in the air."

The congregation was divided in to two distinct camps, the ones with a heartbeat and the ones with out...and Charlie Swan in the middle. The chief was a changed man these last few weeks. He'd gotten his daughter back _and_ discovered a granddaughter. And as icing on the cake, the son he'd never had, had found his soul mate. The worry that he, his wife, and his beast friend had all carried for Jake had evaporated overnight. It had been a good few weeks for Charlie.

He was standing in the middle isle, Leah on one side of him, and Bella, who had just arrived signaling the bride's imminent arrival, on the other. All three in a short but friendly and amicable conversation as blondie vamp played gently on the keyboard they somehow hiked to the location, along with all the chairs and ribbons and flowers and stuff.

It was beautiful though. Ness was going to be so happy. Jake really didn't mind how the whole wedding thing all happened, so long as Ness was the one he was promising himself to. She'd admitted to wanting a fancy white wedding with the dress, the aisle, and the bouquet. She was getting it.

.

It all smelt a little like that, too sweet, vamp bleach to Jacob, but the more natural floral aroma of the flowers all over the area were balancing it for his and his pack's nose. And then it hit him. That sweet, creamy, milky condensed milk smell. Brought in on the breeze coming up-tide of the river.

His chest pulsed again, and his eyes were drawn up stream, to the goddess sitting in a dugout canoe, traveling with the waters flow, her father skillfully steering them to the shore.

Jacob's heart pounded in his chest as he took her in. The sound of the wood as it split up the smooth, river washed stones crunched and echoed over the forest as the gentle flow of the river brought them ashore. The water as it lapped against the bank kept time to his building eagerness and the ricocheting feeling of excitement that was coursing through him.

.

Across the clearing, Nessie looked up, searching out her mate, her lover, her best friend. Her face lit in striking smile, her eyes glassy with excitement as she found his gaze.

Jacob felt their bond pulse, it vibrated with their nervous energy, and the perfection of her and what they had; it encompassed him, completely.

She took her father's hand, gently standing and stepping over the edge of the boat onto the rocky riverbank. The melody of some arbitrary tune that neither had chosen floated in the air, but it didn't matter, she walked to the beat of his heart.

Ness continued between the gathering of their combined family and friends, the entire time her eyes locked and focused on Jacob and Jacob alone.

With each step she took, Jake cold feel the pull of their bond reeling her in. The rightness and contentment of _them_, filling him.

.

She was beautiful, her long hair was loose apart from a sparking clip that held her ringlets off her veil covered face. A lace overlay covered her shoulders, the curve of her tiny waist accentuated with the fold of the fabric. The dress was full and flowing, not too much, but just enough that she fulfilled every mental idea of what his bride might look like walking down the aisle to him.

His bride.

She was beautiful, in every conceivable way.

She held a delicate posy of white and green as she walked, her arm hooked around her father's and her eyes still trained on Jake.

With three final steps, Ness approached the front of the clearing. Her eyes left Jacob's, only for a moment as she smiled and nodded to her father as he lifted her veil and placed her hand in his. Warm and dry. Right.

Their skin prickled and zapped as their fingers touched. A live wire of electrifying love surging through the couple as they stood side by side. Their chests were full and pulsing. Alive with the destined bond they shared as it hummed with the love they possessed.

Ness turned to look up at Jacob's face, his eyes meeting hers. Deep and dark, and shining bright.

.

He squeezed her hand, guiding her a single step closer to the parson, his lips beamed that soul lifting, heavenly transforming smile as he mouthed "I love you," to her.

She wound her fingers between his, giving them a gentle squeeze in return. Her pretty smile transforming the fundamental beauty of his mate to a face of Delphic perfection. _I love you too._

_._

* * *

~ The End ~

* * *

For my loyal readers who wanted to know more of this Jake and Ness — and for those of you who've just joined us. Thanks for reading.


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